Blogtrek

Victoria's Secret

It's name is alluring. Victoria represents the epitome of sexual repressiveness. So saying "Victoria's Secret" says that there may be more than we see of Victoria, hidden behind a curtain. The company sells women's lingerie, and tonight they had a fashion show of some of the skimpiest fashions that they sell. Women paraded around in these outfits, sometimes garnished with outlandish wings, to the tune of dance music with a heavy beat, including one of my favorites, "Independence" by Jon and Vangelis.

I looked at this program because it was doubly controversial. Women's groups such as NOW protested the show is sexual exploitation. It shows women as sex objects. There may be some evidence of this. They showed one man there as having a "family" of women, of their training women to get out there and parade nearly naked, and so forth. Women's groups maintain that shows like this help put women in second place in our society, and these scenes certainly did not do anything to dispel that.

We need to distinguish, however, between discrimination and exploitation issues and expression of sexuality. The former is negative, the latter positive. For a long time societal institutions, especially religious ones, have been trying to repress sexuality. The show tonight was an expression of sexuality, showing off products that are normally used to stir sexual interest in the bedroom. As such it sends a positive message, that sexual expression is good and can add excitement to your life.

Victoria's Secret could have cleaned up its act a little bit. If the women have to go out there half naked, then so should the men. They should have been just as alluringly dressed, including singer Mark Anthony, who belted out a great song tonight. The show described how a man can get a gift for his woman from Victoria's Secret. No. That's not how it goes. The woman is the one to buy the lingerie for herself as a gift for the man, perhaps as a surprise in the bedroom. And the show could have refrained from referring to the women as "girls" and especially as "my girls". But in general I praise the show for celebrating one of the joys of life, namely sex.

The other way in which this show was controversial was due to one particular model: Giséle Bündchen. Initially as they filmed this episode, when Giséle walked on the stage, three women from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) walked on the stage and called her "fur scum", because she had signed a contract with Blackglama to model mink coats. Indeed, PETA's web site describes the cruel way in which mink are killed to make mink coats - electrocution, gassing and so forth. The three women were arrested and charged, then released, and the segment was edited out. Too bad. I liked seeing the models, but I would have liked seeing the PETA protesters as well. PETA's stand is well-taken; we have been unusually cruel to animals over the years. But I do think they were off-mark here. Tonight Giséle was wearing hardly anything, let alone fur. Her fur business was elsewhere. If PETA wanted to protest, they should have protested by waiting until she appeared in a fur coat somewhere. Doing it here instead puts them in the sexually repressed group. They led us the wrong way.

So to sum up I'd say that Victoria's Secret should have equalize the field by including alluring models of both sexes, by not referring to the women as "girls", by being careful recruiting models so they don't wind up with controversial people such as Giséle Bündchen, and PETA should have chosen the timing of its protests more carefully. I give the show a C+.