Scary knickers

by Linda Watson-Brown - 11:17 on 15 September 2009

 

I’m not very sure what I’m meant to be offended about these days – there’s always really small stuff (people reverse parking in supermarket spaces – just how quickly are they going to need to get their lard home?) and there’s always really big stuff, it’s the bit in the middle that’s muddled.  I’ve just been asked to give a few quotes about the new Agent Provocateur ad campaign and this is what has stumped me. A bit. I suppose, in theory, underwear is maybe something that people without brains would think feminists are automatically opposed to, because, presumably these self-same daft people believe that we all burned our bras (good grief) and only accept biodegradable, hemp-based granny knickers. Ha. I like a nice balconette and bit of underwiring as much as the next woman. Or man. So, scanties do not scare me or my sexual politics one little bit.
 
However, I do find the notion of huge, gorgeous comic strip women in scraps of lace and whatnot rampaging Earth for men and their parts a bit ludicrous, if only for the fact that, as usual, the males are all plug ugly. Why do Amazonian, lingerie-clad goddesses never get equally stunning men in these fantasies? I can’t help but think it’s because it’s men themselves who come up with them, and their fantasy is less to do with women in their knickers than it is with geeky blokes getting sex no matter what. Additionally, there will be entire generations of boys raised on Manga images who are going to be sorely disappointed when they first cop a feel. On second thoughts actually, maybe they won’t, given that every teenage girl in the land will have had a boob job soon and they will all have pneumatic frontal regions that are totally at odds with their underweight/overweight other parts (choose your favoured option depending on which celeb mag scare story you’ve been reading this week).
 
Agent Provocateur sell lingerie for sex, not for cosying up in front of EastEnders with a cup of tea and a pie, so it’s not really that shocking that a company which makes you think of having sex, produces an ad that isn’t full of Nora Batty types in grey cast-iron boulder holders. Is this campaign offensive? Only if you think sex is offensive. Does it sexualise women? These are grown ups dressing as comic book characters which seems a lot less of an issue than someone pretending to be a schoolgirl, sucking on a lollipop and holding her homework jotter to her suspenders. Are these real women? Hell, no, but does it matter? The joke’s on men if they buy their other half one of these get ups and seriously think that they will turn into one of these sex deities.
 
This week brought the news that Disney is making a bid for the Marvel catalogue and there were lots of commentators claiming that this is mostly a good thing because Disney has too many princesses and High School Musical thingies to appeal to boys (well . . . only if you think no boy has ever dressed up as a princess or drooled over Zac Efron). Now that there can be an amalgamation where Goofy meets Iron Man, the world will be sorted (or at least there will be many more merchandising opportunities). The Agent Provocateur campaign may very well be aimed at men, given that they are traditionally the main audience for superheroes and comic strips, but I think this has an appeal to women as well. You’d be surprised how many of us middle-aged-frumps have Wonder Woman fantasies . . . and there’s always the hope that the men in our lives will turn into chiselled saviours of the world as soon as we slip into a couple of nipple tassels and a g-string. 
 
 

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Contact Linda at l.wb@stampless.co.uk