So I was talking with a friend the other day and he was sharing his thoughts on the Victoria’s secret fashion show that was going to be aired that night on TV. His concern centered on the show’s tendency to focus on "unrealistic girls that mess up minds and concepts of men and women". The idea being that girls watching will think this is what they should look like, this is what is sexy, and that it glorifies the “glitz and glamour”, while guys will think this is what women should look like, this is beautiful, and skews our thinking to an extreme that is completely unrealistic.
I flippantly made a comment that it is for this same reason that we shouldn’t watch professional athletes and the like on TV. When women watch Michael Phelps on TV it is possible and perhaps even probable that it could insight lust on a certain percentage of those watching. Guys who watch professional athletes play football, baseball, basketball may have a messed up concept of what is masculine as they watch “unrealistic” guys performing and competing at a level that glorifies the “fame and fortune” of the industry.
I said this in a joking manner, but as I thought about it a bit more, I realized that there is some truth in that. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending the V.S. fashion show. I’m just suggesting that it is a bit odd that this one hour show would receive a significant amount of condemnation and criticism for something that is unabashedly promoted on our TV sets and pretty much every other form of media, 24 hours a day. I mean consider the popular shows on TV today, Grey’s Anatomy, Dancing with the Stars, LOST, and even “reality” shows like Survivor…do they not all showcase unrealistic representations of what we are told is beautiful, sexy, or attractive? So, again…I’m not saying everyone needs to watch the Victoria Secret Fashion Show online…I’m just saying that those reasons we often list as to why we shouldn’t watch the VS show, that same list could often be applied to the shows we do watch, the magazines we read, and the music we listen to.
But in the spirit of full disclosure, I do watch LOST, my wife likes Dancing with the Stars, we’ve never seen Grey’s, and we did watch the VS Fashion show last night. We both like the outfit that had all of the butterflies, but oddly didn’t care for the actual outfit the girl was wearing with it. We also thought the 5 million dollar bra wasn’t that impressive.
Anyway…that’s my thought for today.