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Chicagoist is a feminist. We make no bones about it and we've felt this way since we knew what one was. We're a staunch defender of women's issues and really aware of the subtle societal influences on women. However, we have never been a party-liner for anything and we may sound like we don't get where these women are coming from. We do. But the first amendment trumps nearly everything and at some point, there are bigger fish to fry.
Salon owner Pascal Ibgui and plastic surgeon Steven Bloch have a billboard up for the Pascal Pour Elle and Skin Deep Medical Spa over in Glenview. It's pretty lame. It shows a really hot chick with barely anything on and it has all these arrows pointing to her "flaws" and what procedures she can have done to "fix" them. Niiiice.
"I was shocked," said Regina Thibeau. "I was offended as a woman, angered as a mother and embarrassed as a resident of Glenview." Let's start by getting the terrible sweeping generalizations out of the way first, shall we? We've seen far too many North Shore MILFs* with plastic boobs and fixed up faces for this not to smack of irony. We don't dig on the plastic surgery scene, but it seems like this guy just knows how to get at his target audience.
The billboard will be up through July and despite over 300 signatures requesting it be taken down, it violates no laws and will remain up. The image was on a direct mail campaign the business recently used and brought in so much business they thought they'd amp it up a bit. There was also recent billboard controversy when a law firm put a billboard up encouraging divorce. However, it was taken down because it didn't have a permit.
"It doesn't represent us as people whose beauty emanates from within," Thibeau said. "I'm a mother, a wife, a member of the PTA, and this is an affront to everything I work for and try to instill in my children." Cathe Russe notes that she wants it removed because "It demonstrates that there's a set of values they support that are the antithesis of my values." Wow. So we just zap things when they don't correspond with our values?
It gets uglier after the jump ...
Chicagoist is hazarding a guess that these women have may have watched an episode or two of America's Next Top Model or fallen prey to the addiction of Nip/Tuck. We're not sure that the women quoted in the article ever watched these shows, but out of 300 signatures on the petition to get the sign taken down, we would wager a large amount of cash on the odds that many of them have.
We'd also be curious to know how many of these women let their girls go around in those revealing low-rise jeans? With a bellybutton ring, perhaps? Do they have any idea if their daughters are engaging in some form of disordered eating? Obviously the billboard is ridiculous to point out a beautiful woman's flaws in an attempt to get women to question whether or not they need to artificially alter themselves. To ask if they meet some sort of unattainable, make-believe beauty standard created by men in all forms of media: television, film, and the music industry just to start. But somehow it's more disturbing when real life women and girls are using subtler, sometimes much more dangerous ways to meet these standards and going unnoticed while doing so. Getting new boobs is pretty obvious. Throwing up every day after class isn't.
What is the most disturbing element is how society at large views sexuality as a subject at all. Chicagoist finds the human body so much less disturbing or threatening to our children than graphic depictions of violence on TV in the form of torture scenes on 24 or murder/rape cases on Law and Order: SVU. The new trend of torture-sexual violence movies that are passing for horror movies these days (Hostel, Saw) completely blows us away.
We like the Dove campaign. We think it's sad that it has to be a shock that a size 12 is really the norm for most women and that you can look beautiful at that size. We think women like Diane Keaton, Jamie Lee Curtis and Blythe Danner are absolutely beautiful. We wish more women had their style, grace and aplomb. Despite our words, we agree wholeheartedly with the women of Glenview. But this billboard is just a symptom of a much larger disease. And demanding that it be taken down instead of trying to find out what the cause of the problem is is like trying to fix a sinus infection by sucking on a Luden's. It fixes a symptom for a minute, but doesn't touch the illness.
*If Tori Amos is co-opting this word, we figured we could use it, too.
"Not a feminist?" by tianadargent
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I was really pissed off about this when I heard it, but then I saw a picture of said billboard. It really has nothing offensive on it. It only coments on the models damaged hair, weak nails, aged skin, and wrinkles. I don't care about the later two, but there are ads for skin care snake oil all over. If the ad was promoting liposuction or boob jobs, then we would have a problem. This isn't that much different from any other ad out there.
This oughtta' be good.
According to the Chicago Tribune, as of 2:18pm today, the billboard is coming down. Just visit their site (for some reason I can't put the link in here) and you'll see the story.
this is so crazy. I see nothing wrong with the billboard. They are pointing out the model's flaws. When women look at themselves, they see flaws. I don't care if you're a feminist or not, all women do it. The ad just shows the type of procedures the advertised office does. Nothing more, nothing less.
You must be into Granny porn if you're into Diane Keaton, Jamie Lee Curtis and Blythe Danner.
You should check out oldfolkshome dot com for a taste of that.
It's cool, we ll have our kinks........
Yup, it's coming down.
I knew that there was something wrong with the petition creator - look at the quote she gave about the billboard coming down - "We applaud Clear Channel as a responsible corporate citizen."
Ew, it makes me feel dirty that that sentence was uttered anywhere in the world, let alone as a statement to the paper.
I hope no one finds you attractive after you're 45, Not Ready. That was gross.
I don't see any "problems" with that model, as the billboard states. If a woman like that has problems, heaven help the rest of us.
And sure, women critcize every inch of themselves all the time. But I believe partly b/c images like this exist.
Which came first, that imagery or women being critical, I don't know. But I know it certainly doesn't help the cause having billboards like this.
19% of American children live in poverty. That's one out of five. As a MOTHER, shouldn't this woman be more concerned about things that matter? Or is she a MOTHER in the other sense of the word?
Steven - What are you doing to lift children out of poverty? At least she's a member of the PTA, which sent a lot of aid to the kid of Katrina and continues to do so.
This whole thread is ridiculous and confuses the issue. Businesses have a right to promote themselves however they want, even if it comes off anti- ANY group of people.
This isn't about being a mother, or a member of the PTA or kids being in POVERTY (PLEASE explain how you got there) but about free speech and creativity.
Chicagoist needs to climb of offits high horse before it gets a nose bleed.
umm. WE didn't say anything about kids being in poverty or being a member of the PTA. our point WAS about free speech. that you can't go around demanding that things be taken down because they offend your sensibilities. see: "We don't dig on the plastic surgery scene, but it seems like this guy just knows how to get at his target audience."
and then, our point was while that billboard should violate *some* sensibilities, there are many other issues of media and women's issues that are constantly ignored, that it seems sort of bizarre that this is the one that gets a petition going. or hypocritical, as we went out on a limb and said.
don't confuse the commenter with the post-er, please.
Oh christ, I'm generally fine with the whole "Chicagoist/we/us" gimmick (even though big sister Gothamist isn't so heavy-handed with it), but does it really need to bleed over into your comments? At that point it becomes rather insulting to the reader, in my opinion.
sorry, prescott. sometimes, it just sticks. i find myself writing for other things and realizing i'm "doing it again." my bad. :/
Has anyone seen the gross Pamela Anderson that shows what happens when you get too much plastic surgery?
I drive past this billboard every day. I noticed it bc I thought it was in bad taste, and the text is too small (for me anyway) to figure out what flaws exactly it is pointing out. I don't see why this billboard had any more controversy than others with half naked women. I just thought it was silly. The model is beautiful, so I don't see how pointing out her "flaws" could bring anyone to their business. I thought maybe the billboard was pointing out what on her had been "fixed"
I agree there are much bigger fish to fry. I try to ignore most advertising, so I don't see the point in fighting this billboard. I would prefer to spend my time on more important "issues"