Victoria’s Secret Aggravates Me to No End

Let me be blunt: I hate the Victoria’s Secret commercials.

Christmas is coming, which means the ever-delightful Dr. Who Christmas Special will be airing—complete with the first-ever female Doctor. You go, Jodie Whittaker! She’s taken over the role with panache and punch from Peter Calpaldi. Seeing a strong and serious Whittaker in Broadchurch, here we see her versatility as an actress. I wanted Idris Elba as the first black actor to lead the Dr. Who cast, maybe Idris the next regeneration. 

The Dr. Who special won’t air until New Year’s Day. Still, I look forward to it the way I do to Christmas classics. Who doesn’t love Jimmy Stewart’s It’s a Wonderful Life and Alastair Sim as Scrooge in 1951s A Christmas Carol.

After airing my geek and love of old flicks, there’s one thing I hate about the holidays. 

Back to being blunt: I hate the Victoria Secret ads.

Their Christmas special sends me into a frenetic rant. The onslaught of VS’s commercials make me ecstatic to have a DVR. Zap, zap, and zap—I cruise through them as rapidly as the system will allow. To his credit, when we’re stuck watching live TV and the scantily clad women appear, my husband leaves the room. Kind of him to step out rather than ogle the models in my presence. Or, perhaps, to avoid putting up with my ravings.

Give me the Dove commercials any day. Real women of various sizes and shapes promote soap and body wash looking like the rest of us mere mortals.

Both companies want to sell their products and convince us women that theirs is the best on the market. They want us to believe their item will solve our many physical defects and make us gorgeous. Gag me.

But still, Victoria Secret models—who are these people? They’re skin and bones, knobby knees and really, the women aren’t any prettier than women I see around town, the women in my life who I think are gorgeous because I know what lives inside of them. 

Without their tons of makeup, I’m sure the Victoria’s Secret models are nice looking, but we wouldn’t know, would we? Have you seen the video of Colbie Caillat removing her makeup as she sings Try? What a marvelous way for girls and women to see how attractive we are without the trappings of make-up and hair extensions.

That said, I doubt if any men notice that these women aren’t anymore appealing than their wives or girlfriends since they’re concentrating on what the sexy undergarments reveal.

And that is what I rail against, what I dislike the most—the falsely implied promise in the Victoria Secret commercials:

Buy this lingerie and you will look so stunning that men everywhere will want you.

Oh, gag me.

There was a TV show on twenty some years ago, Silk Stalkings, which caused me to howl with laughter because the female cop was frequently shown taking off her thigh-highs and garter belt complete with gun tucked into one stocking. Let’s be serious here folks—what woman working hard enough to become a police officer is going to dress like that on the job? Of course, that train of thought could take me down other roads like what coroner dresses in the fashion of Sasha Alexander or Dana Delaney’s characters on their now defunct TV shows? Those stiletto heels would last exactly how long on the feet of a real coroner standing for eight plus hours a day on a hard floor?

But I’ve gotten off track.

I have family members and girlfriends who swear by the comfort of Victoria Secret bras and underwear. Now, notice that I said “comfort.” They haven’t told me that men are following them around every time they don these garments—oh, wait, that’s probably because they are wearing clothes over their underwear! What a concept.

Back to the message we’re sent—we are supposed to eat like nibbling rabbits so our stomachs will be concave, our ribs will stick out, we can have Scarlet O’Hara sized waists and our thighs will be inches apart because the muscles are so thin they couldn’t possibly touch.

Woman, be lured by the comfort—I can live with that the same way I support dying your hair any shade you want to if it’s fun for you and makes you feel good. I support comfort in any fashion. But please don’t let these commercials delude you.

Men, seriously? Do I need to insult your intelligence by even commenting to you directly?

Let me close with the famous words uttered by our friend Lorenzo during the Milan Fashion week of 2012: The models? Pah, they are only pretty when they are all made up. When you see them the week before, they are nothing special [without the trappings of fashion].

Ladies, beauty will always come from who we are inside, not from the bras we wear!

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See more ranting at: Women’s Equality in Advertising

And, guess what? More Ranting here