Big-breasted Women Dancing in Their Bras

An object lesson on the male gaze:

Look at the video above, a Playtex bra ad of large-breasted women dancing in nothing but their bras--in joy over their comfort and fit.

Just the description "large-breasted women dancing in their bras" should bring in random male web surfers looking for masturbation material. They'll be disappointed because, although the women shake their moneymakers and look directly back at the camera, the whole commercial is shot for the female gaze.

The ad is not supposed to turn you on sexually. Instead, it's supposed to create a sense of shared positive emotions. The women in the ad are inviting other women to watch, share the joy, and join in the dance. The women are dancing for equals, not judges and approvers.

I love this series of ads by Playtex, just as I loved the Dove soap Campaign for Real Beauty. And it's not because I'm unaware that these are cyncial Madison Avenue ploys for national discussion and attention. I know. I grew up in this country too.

And it's not because Dove isn't just as evil as other corporations. (See Today's Vid.)

But even the cyncial calculation that showing real women as if they were (gasp!) beautiful will get people talking about your product enough to up your market share ... helps. Because our entire advertising and marketing complex is ruled by the male gaze. So acknowledging that there is a female gaze, you know, at all, and providing that female gaze with something worth looking at is, sadly, somewhat radical.

What's really sad though is that this will not effect any real transformation. Agencies are doing this because it's still shocking to act as if normal-looking women are attractive. If this were ever to stop being shocking, the ads would lose their value and we'd just go back to default, which is to present the most sexually titillating women.

Because women will look at bimbos, but men won't look at the ordinary. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. I'm not sure I believe that. What do you think?