In a post on the company’s Inside Curve blog, plus-size retailer Lane Bryant complains that two networks -- Fox and ABC -- are trying to censor them by resisting the airing of its sexy Cacique lingerie ad. Fox wanted edits, then wanted to restrict them to the final 10 minutes of American Idol.
This story is interesting for several reasons. First, it's an example of hypocritical these two networks in particular - the right wing Fox and the Disney-owned ABC - really are.
So why give LB this kind of static when both networks have consistently broadcast other racy ads (think Victoria’s Secret) and programming (like the sexually-charged Desperate Housewives). I know the TV networks have a tough time dealing with the needs, wants, desires, prejudices of their affiliates, particularly in the Bible Belt, but come on. Let's grow up. Or could it be that Victoria's Secret is such a powerhouse advertiser, they don't want LB encroaching on their turf?
LB has made the most of this whole thing - and who can blame them? I've gone to the blog, watched the spot in question - Yes, it's great work. Very sexy, but also very tastefully done. The consumer reaction seems overwhelmingly favorable. People get it. Why are the stick-thin, but amazingly ample-breasted females on the Victoria's Secret ads deemed to be "normal" while the bigger, more curvy women represented by LB seen as being too fat for prime time? We're not talking obese here. We're talking normal.
One of the comments posted at LB's blog brought up a good point. If you go back to pre-Farrah Fawcett America, pre-Super Model America, back to the Mad Men era of the late fifties/early sixties, the Marilyn Monroe body, which I believe was a size 10, was considered the ideal. Nothing wrong with those curves either.
Watching American tonight. Let's see if they air the sexy Cacique ad, or just the tamer one.
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