In this day and age, media is worldwide and as technology expands, so does the influence the social media has on its viewers. A simple commercial that lasts no more than a few minutes can have a great impact on society in developing stereotypes and prejudices. Victoria Secret often influence women with their advertisements of attractive, yet scantily-clad women. Thus, these commercials make the statement that all women should look this way to be desirable which forms a stereotype around “attractive” women and soon brings about prejudicial perceptions. In creating these influences, they help to shape society in both a positive and negative way.
Victoria Secret is an American retailer of women's wear, lingerie, and beauty products. It is vastly known for their alluring models, or “Angels.” They have made over five billion dollars in sales and 1,040 company-owned stores which are still expanding in places such as the United Kingdom. They promote lingerie in many of their commercials and usually have a yearly runaway show. Victoria Secret Angels, such as Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, and Adriana Lima are known to keep a strict diet and maintain a extensive workout to keep themselves fit. Many of these Angels have helped to attract others, not only to buy their products, but also to create society’s definition beauty based off Victoria Secret’s ads.
Let’s face it, companies are mainly, if not only here to sell their products to the consumer. What do they sell? Anything you want. How? They make their products so tempting that you cannot resist or just enough to make you want to buy it. In this case, Victoria Secret uses the power of their models. Their models create this illusion that you can almost become as beautiful as they are if you buy what they’re advertising. These commercials develop the prefect girl stereotype. Victoria Secret models can be great inspirations to leading a healthy lifestyle, but can also become poisonous to one’s self esteem. This means perfect hair, body, smile, eyes, and plenty of other factors that we cannot always control. In my opinion, this is wrong as it damages a girl’s self esteem and creates this negative image about how a girl should look. Prejudice comes into play when this stereotype develops and people may start feeling the need to label what they see which can end up hurting many people. This doesn’t just apply to women as men experience the same issue and with these commercials, for any gender, can result in high expectations in a new relationship. The truth is, no girl has perfect features and shouldn’t feel the need to measure up to society’s standards as they are a bit too high. I think it’s difficult to understand the purpose of these prejudices and stereotypes as they can be offensive and in my opinion, we need to make ones that would somehow help society instead of attacking one another on some these issues.
Carrie said that the stereotypes created by the Victoria Secret models can be good and bad. I agree because like she said, they can motivate people to work out and become more fit. On the other hand, some people can become depressed because they can't seem to make themselves look like the girls in the magazines or in the store's displays. Not everyone has the same body type, and not all people look like that. Like Carrie said, I don't think we should judge people based on those ads and models. As a society, we should accept people for who they are and not because they look like some girls in a Victoria Secret ad or on the wall sized advertisements in the store windows.
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