Saturday, April 23, 2011

    In my marathon shopping spree yesterday, I hit quite a few stores.  In one, I found myself standing in line at the lingerie/sleep-wear counter staring at a larger-than-life, well-endowed woman who was about 1% covered.  The framed poster was hard to miss.  Which was why it was put there.
   When I finally got to the counter, I looked at the poster and blurted out, "Even when I was skinny, I never looked like that..."
   The young girl waiting on me was very pretty and... well, young.  So I thought she wouldn't "get" what I was saying.  Instead, to my surprise, she responded, "I'm glad you commented on that. They told us that in all the pictures  posted here, the women would have to be covered..."  She glanced back at the picture and said, "That picture... well, it looks to me like something is about to spill... if you know what I mean."
   Indeed....
   I know I'm old-fashioned.  But as I was leaving I thought about my grandfather.  He loved movies, went to at least one a week and recorded the titles in the back of his diary faithfully.  When a blockbuster new film came out, he took my mom and her younger brother to see the film.  In the middle of it, he made his family get up and walk out of the theater.  Why? Because it was too graphic. One of the main characters, Melanie, was in obvious child birth and sweat was popping out on her face while there were close-ups of her hands wringing a twisted sheet together in her agony. The film?  Gone with the Wind.
   As I walked out of the store, I wondered what Grandpa would have had to say about the poster I had just seen.  And I wondered what young girls thought as they looked up at this air-brushed, scantily-clad, super-model beauty and then thought about their own faces and figures.
  But really, I mostly just thought that a person should be able to go into a department store with their kids  without having to look at trash.
  And maybe if enough moms comment on it, they would put up something a little more suitable for families.
 
 
 

2 comments:

  1. It is amazing how things have changed!!!

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  2. I know, I boycotted Bath and Body Works once because of the naked woman on their back wall. All strategic spots were hidden, but she was obviously naked.

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