Diet product advertisements are everywhere. As summer approaches, we see them even more often. These are the ones I found on Facebook recently:
Now. Let’s compare them with what I found at Mixi (a popular social networking site in Japan).
Left: I am guessing that the right is “before” and the left is “after”? (or both are “after”?)
Right: it says “Do you have a GAP between your INNER THIGHS?”
Please understand why I am scared of visiting Japan every summer.
The rightmost ad is of course horrifying.
But isn’t it also ripe for some subversive ad-busting?
Change the ひらがな lettering of すきま to a more alarming スキマ and you have a perfect opening for critique of this body changing ideal.
However, if one does not watch one’s words the critique will share the sin of that being critiqued: defining certain bodies as WRONG…
やれやれ、as we say in Swedish (here in Japanese) いくら回ったって、お尻はまだ後ろにある