So, here are some wildly inappropriate magazine ads.
I remembered them from when I was a kid, and I looked them up to see if they were as awful as I recalled. They were worse. I gasped … if you will.
Now, several of these (like the ketchup bottle one) are from the 1960s. The others are from the 1970s or 1980s.
They’re all terrible, but there's one for Love’s Babysoft, which was a kind of cologne and body-cream line (I don’t know if it’s still around) that was meant to make a girl smell like a baby. Which I confess, I found creepy then and I find even more offensive now, with its not-at-all-subtle shout out to men who want to infantilize women (at best) and pedophiles (at worst). The advertisement says it all.
Not long ago, I was writing about a debate I had with one of my daughters, a new college grad, about beauty pageants. I didn’t think they were a thing anymore. She assured me that they were. I was (again) appalled. I must appall easily.
For the sake of argument, because she loves an argument, my daughter pointed out that for some young women, these pageants were a route to position and power and to being spokeswomen for their culture and for other women.
I didn’t buy that and told my daughter so, after which she accused me of being elitist as well.
It’s true that the current Miss Universe, India’s Harnaaz Sandhu, is a lovely articulate 21-year-old actor and model. Her family and her supporters must indeed be very proud of her.
Still, the rules for the Miss Universe competition specify that the contestants must be between the ages of 18 and 28 (I guess after that latter birthday, they’re too far past the sell-by date) and unmarried. They stroll about in formal costumes from their country, as well as swimsuits. They answer questions to prove that they are intelligent as well as pretty. A panel of judges watches from just below the stage.
This reminds me of the kinds of fairytales that used to begin with the story of how the fairest young women in the land were brought before the prince so that he could choose a bride from among them. Donald Trump was co-owner of the Miss Universe franchise before he had to give it up to become president and he reportedly was an avid greeter.
Anybody can do whatever she wants to do, of course. I have friends who were pageant princesses, one Miss Teen America, one Miss Texas, one Miss Elmtree Park Water Follies. They were all beautiful and talented young women and they grew up to be fine stable women. But they told me that some of the comments they heard – and which they considered to be the price of being part of the pageant game – were often disgusting and once in a while, scary.
There’s a reason that this whole tradition was never a thing for sons, only daughters. I don’t know if parents would put up with their sons being ogled as sex objects, no matter how nice-looking they were. I don’t know if the boys themselves would want to be on display or if they would consider that humiliating or silly.
I think it is humiliating and silly.
But I think the reason that it still goes on is that there’s an audience for it. There’s money to be made, dreams (and hair products) to sell. And as long as there is money to be made, I guess my daughter is correct: Pageants will be a thing.
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HOT LIFE TIP
This is more a mea culpa, a revelation.
Lest you think that I don’t have great big gaps in my own rectitude, here is a commercial that my brother and I have loved all our lives, especially the part about “the potted palm,” that is absolutely inappropriate in every single way that it can be:
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There’s this new book out I hear is really good! Here’s a picture of the author. She’s no beauty queen! But I hear she spins a good yarn.
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Side Note: This newsletter will be alternating biweekly with my shorter blog posts on my website, which I like to call 'Jackie's Web'. That way, you'll still have my crazy stories every Tuesday.
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