Analysis of an PSA campaign from a feminists perspective

Through this essay I aim to take an advertising campaign from Star Models Bahia and analyse it from the perspective of feminism. I will explore the ideas deliberately put forward by the campaign as well as the ideas that may not have been intended. I will then use what others have said about the campaign to either confirm or deny my opinions and readings of the images. Finally I will state wether I think the campaign is successful or not, and how it might be improved or changed.

“You are not a sketch, say no to anorexia” campaign from Star Models. The advertising agency was Revolution.

The campaign consists of images juxtaposing fashion designer style sketches with photoshopped models made to look like the sketches. The images use off-white cream for the background with the models in a pastel colour pallet. Awkward hand drawn type holds the campaigns tag line: “You are not a Sketch, Say no to anorexia” in one corner. The photographs of the models have clearly been manipulated in such a way that they are the same proportions as the sketches. Meaning the stylised skinniness of the sketches is transferred; resulting in creepy, skeleton like figures. Overall the images are compositionally sparse, using only elements that are narratively essential (in this case the: Logo, Sketch, Photo and tagline). This sparseness reduces the amount of distractions within the image, allowing the intended meaning to take centre stage.

The problem however, is the intended meaning isn't holey clear. I can think of five different readings of this campaign. Not all as sincere as I'm sure was intended.

• Models; you don't have to be skinny
• Normals; even models aren't this skinny
• Designers; draw and make more realistically sized clothes
• Anorexia is bad. Don't be anorexic
• It's designers fault models are skinny

If the campaign is aimed at models, the imagery and message works to some extent. If it's aimed at normal women however, the message stumbles. As raised by Mirna (Editor of Elle Croatia) on her blog, “they could just as easily juxtapose a picture of a runway model next to one of the average female and change “YOU ARE NOT A SKETCH” to “YOU ARE NOT A MODEL.” but that wouldn't shift the blame away from the modelling agency, so wouldn't make publicity sense.

This all makes the campaign feel very worthy, in the way that it is instructing girls not to compare themselves with the sketches without doing anything to help. In the end it's still a fashion advert with skinny models. It's like the purpose of the campaign was to highlight anorexia in fashion and how designers make small clothes. Great, known issue now highlighted ... now what? You got a few people to go "oh that's so sad, people shouldn't be anorexic" and do nothing about it. The battle isn't with awareness, people already know the problem. The battle is with the overall attitude towards women in the media.

If we look at the credits to the campaign:

Advertising Agency: Revolution, Brazil
Creative Directors: Emerson Braga, Edson Rosa
Art Director: Edson Rosa
Copywriter: Emerson Braga
Photographer: Diego Freire
Illustrators: Edson Rosa, Samuel Marinho
Additional credits: Carlos Pereira, Renata Matos, Vitor Barros, Flavio Fernandez, Melina Romariz, Mylene Alves, Clarissa Mattos, Jaime Neder Rezak

We see that no one creating the imagery or in control of the message is a woman. It isn't until additional credits that a woman is even mentioned. I would expect that at least one of the creative directors to be a woman. In a industry so dominated by women in the outward presentation, one might expect there to be more women in command. How do you get a well rounded idea that suits the psyche of women if you don't have women in positions of power or control? Even with the best of intentions, the ideas and words of men can be insensitive to women, either through ignorance or apathy. I don't think this campaign is particularly insensitive but I think it could be targeted better, something I feel a woman would have more insight into in this case.
Not that eating disorders and body issues are purely a female thing. Both men and women can be affected by anorexia, bulimia and feeling their bodies are inadequate. Though anorexia is less common in men (ANS, 2011) there are other disorders that are more prevalent (though less obvious) in relation to body inadequacy, such as obsessively trying to gain muscle mass and tone. These disorders can also be partly attributed to advertising and high fashion. Men in fashion are tall, handsome, muscular and well endowed. It feeds the same parts of the brain that say you are somehow inadequate or should change.
In short, I think that it is more common for women to consciously experience body issues at some point in their lives and be able to relate to that in other women by comparison with the general experience of men.



An article on Huffington Post compared the Star models campaign with an earlier anti-anorexia campaign from Nolita staring Isabelle Caro, a known anorexic model. This 2007 campaign showed Isabelle naked and reclined with “No Anorexia” written across it. Isabelle's figure at the time was incredibly slight, skeletal even and not dissimilar from the manipulated imagery from Star Models campaign. The campaign was very effective at the time and had a second wave of attention and meaning when Isabelle Caro died in 2010.
The Nolita campaign, though very effective in raising awareness and causing a stir, didn't change the attitude of the fashion industry all that much. The models stayed skinny, the clothes stayed small and the photoshopers made them all skinnier and bustier. The general attitude towards this tendency to the skeletal is gradually changing but whether that is down to; a specific campaign, the culmination of campaigns or the public becoming fed up with the saturation of media with unrealistic figures; is unknown. It could well be that the models are skinny because thats what the public want and that having so called plus sized models would be a detriment to the industry as a whole. I don't personally subscribe to this as I think many people would feel more comfortable looking at images of realistically beautiful models with flesh on their bones but I can see how the fashion industry would change itself to what sold more (in this case; skinny sells). Unfortunately the choice of skinny over plus has been removed from the majority of advertising, leaving only a few groundbreaking campaigns that use plus sized models.



Who is to blame for the state of the fashion industry and it's attitude to women? Is there anyone to blame? The campaign points to the fashion designers, they draw and make clothes for size zero or smaller girls after all. But they could just be fulfilling what art directors and magazine editors want for their runways and double page spreads. The art directors and editors must have complete control over every part of what they send into the world, unless the talents scouts only send them models fresh out of anorexia clinics (Slate 2013). Even then they could reject them and request less skeletal models without eating disorders. So it's back on the editors. Even the most aesthetically guided of which must also be influenced by what sells and makes them the most money or popularity. Over a long period of time, if the things that sell best are faced by slim models and the things that don't sell are faced by full figured models then the obvious marketing move is to have more slim models. So it's on the public, who buy the thing with the skinny model and the Photoshoped face. Regardless of what the public consciously think or say, they buy skinny. So editors want skinny to sell. So talent scouts find skinny and fashion designers make beautiful clothes to fit them. The designers can't make bespoke outfits for every individual model that will wear it, so the size is standardised; 5'8” tall with measurements of 34” chest 24” waist and 34” hips (AMA 2012), which equates to roughly size 4 US. Bare in mind, that is a short and large model by runway standards with some models being both taller and thiner.
People are impressionable and eager to fit in. Plastering images of unhealthy people and stating “this is what is beautiful, anything less than this is not attractive” is not good for us as a whole. Stop using women to sell your products and they might stop wanting to look like commodities. The want isn't a conscious want, it's a subconscious self comparison with your peers. If your peers are all tall, large breasted and stick thin then that is what you are going to compare yourself to at some level. Does this campaign change anything? Make anybody do anything differently? I don't think so but I think it's a step in the right direction at the very least. I don't think it's targeting the right people to be an effective campaign of change in the fashion industry.



Chris Steel - E&OE



Bibliography

StarModels (2013) Facebook page [Online] Available at: www.facebook.com/pages/Star-Models-Bahia/188748634477783?sk=wall&filter=12

Copyranter (2013) Alarming Anorexia Ads Via Brazil [Online] Available at: www.Buzzfeed.com/copyranter/alarming-anorexia-ads-via-brazil?utm_source=feedly

Huffington post (2013) Anti-Anorexia Ads Stun With Tagline 'You Are Not A Sketch' [Online] Available at: www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/anti-anorexia-ads-photos_n_3110649.html

9thDynasty (2013) Disturbing Anorexia fighting ads [Online] Available at: http://9thdynasty.tumblr.com/post/48615961867/disturbing-anorexia-fighting-ads-compare-skinny#disqus_thread

ANS – Anorexia Nervosa Statistics (2011) “Anorexia affects approximately 1 in 150 fifteen-year-old females, and 1 in 1000 fifteen-year-old males.” & “Approximately 10 percent of cases of anorexia arise in men” [Online] Available at:

www.disordered-eating.co.uk/eating-disorders-statistics/anorexia-nervosa-statistics-uk.html

Slate (2013) The Most Infuriating Thing You Will Ever Read About the Modeling Industry - “Modelling scouts have been gathering outside of Sweden’s largest eating disorder clinic, trying to lure critically thin patients onto the runway” [online] Available at: www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/04/22/modeling_scouts_recruit_teen_patients_at_swedish_anorexia_clinic_are_you.html

AMA, Association of Model Agents(2012) Getting started as a model [online] available at: www.associationofmodelagents.org/become-a-model/getting-started-as-a-model.html