Advertising has accustomed us to throw ourselves in the face of film and song stars. These images scratched our retinas as we went along and the place of the dream in our kid’s soul was stolen from us.
We no longer want to take our cues from stars who have been surgically retouched on Photoshop, or freshly botoxed to sell us a lifting cream.
We prefer the lies in advertising when we were presented with pure perfection.
We don’t want to look like Scarlett Johansson or sleep with Julia Roberts and her plastic body. We are burning to consume the girl in the latest Calvin Klein campaign. Which one will you tell me? I don’t know, I don’t know her name, but she evokes the illusion that everything is going well in the best of all possible worlds when I see her in the pages of magazines or on the walls of subway trains.
Yes, advertising is designed to sell desire, not an actress’s off-set schedule.
Yes, models are fantasies, because we know nothing about them, they’re not popular and they’re beautiful. And if one day the model comes to age and well we will replace it by younger and those who persist in the profession will be celebrities has-been recognized for their antics.
Yes, models in the world of advertising are and must remain perfectly anonymous and it is this mystery that makes us fantasize. We want to be like them, because they are not so and so. The models spit attitude on image, stink of allure and catch us under the swell of a trend on which we want to surf!
Yes, we can thank Gap which currently projects us 4/3 of these mannequins make us want to undress the poster and consume products of lesser quality. We don’t want to take Julia, Vincent, Kate, Marion home with us, but rather her or him. Who is it? I don’t know, but his name is Desire!
No, we don’t want to look like a cokehead actress or one who takes out her sex tape to stay in the game. We know nothing about the models haunting the pages of the latest product to buy except that they are beautiful.
The models shower us with testosterone when we look at them, because not knowing their identities we can imagine that they are surely Mrs. or Mr. everyone sublimely beautiful version and that one day we will look like them.
They are Barbie dolls to whom we can still invent a name and an identity.
I’m tired of being sold a star identity instead of a brand identity! Be yourself, be that beautiful stranger on the poster even if you are short, fat and ugly. Lies are beautiful when you don’t know them.
Don’t let your dream be violated by putassive stars! Demand your share of freedom, demand your share of fantasy.
Applaud the brands that serve us an unattainable ideal, rather than taking your cue from an uninspired, retouched model.
Fred Joker Gourdin