Karl Lagerfield Sells Ice Cream, Mocks Fat People

Skinny Girl Eating Ice Cream: A study in social morés. Eclipsed only by the Fat Child Eating Ice Cream tableau vivant, nothing brings out more opinions than a thin girl with a cone. Some people are jealous: "Lucky genetic freak gets to eat ice cream and still look like that?!" Others are sad: "I'll never be thin." Others moralize: "Ice cream is bad for you, skinnyfat girl!" Some diagnose: "That has eating disorder written all over it -- I remember when I used to starve for an entire day just so I could eat ice cream." And some resolve: "I want to look like that! Diet starts now!!" Yet others defend: "She's naturally thin, stop hating on her! Can't a girl eat what she wants?" A few will cheer, "You go girl! You eat that ice cream!" And anyone who's left pretends not to care, "Eh, I don't even like ice cream. Or hipster skinny girls."

Hence this ad was born:

Say what you will but I think the Rosie the Riveter of our generation is Rachel Bilson fellating an ice cream bar. It's a call to action that simultaneously plays to our strengths (We are confident, beautiful women! Who are not afraid to do what we want!) and our deepest fears (I can't eat ice cream and look like Rachel!). Of course now that I've compared an actress best known for cute-as-a-button frivolity to a World War II icon, I feel a little dirty.

But the one thing that the Skinny Girl With Cone image really portrays is our belief that we can have it all -- a belief that marketers simultaneously encourage and then rip away. Which is why this new ad for Magnum ice cream irritated me more than knowing that... So what if Karl Lagerfield and Rachel Bilson team up to sell ice cream -- another day, another celebrity product endorsement, right? Consider: Lagerfield is the fashion designer for Chanel who famously lost nearly 100 pounds in just over a year so he could fit into Dior Homme clothing. He is also the man who said this about complaints about overly thin models in fashion:

These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly. The fashion industry supports dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women. [...][Models] aren't deliberately skinny because they want to be models, they've probably had family problems or suffered from other traumas. I've never seen any anorexic models myself, only extremely slim ones. [...] It's just as much a cliché as saying that all models take drugs and get drunk at sex orgies. Ninety percent of them are quite normal, properly proportioned girls with less fat and more muscles, who also eat pizzas and burgers.

(Dear Karl, whether a girl gets too thin from wanting to be a model or because she's endured a lot of trauma and family problems, being underweight is still unhealthy. Besides, most of the eating disordered girls I have known have had a combination of societal pressure and trauma.) So let me get this straight: the man who mocks "fat mummies" and glorifies not just thin but emaciated women is now trying to sell me ice cream. Using a gorgeous, thin model posing for a photo shoot. Is there a hidden camera? Or a garbage can to throw up in so I can purge the ice cream?

It is exactly this hypocrisy that has many people so confused and disheartened. Fat people are mercilessly mocked and yet how many commercials for food that will make you fat do we see in a day? Skinny people are deified and yet so is luscious decadent food. Marketers want you to buy the contradictory idea that you can have your cake and eat it too (and still zip up your Calvin Klein gown). Why? Because it makes money. If we're not buying things to indulge ourselves ("I deserve this!") then we're buying things to cover up or undo those indulgences ("I deserve this...').

Karl Lagerfield has an answer for this too, speaking of his epic diet, "I only like the things that I'm allowed to eat, so it's not like I have to avoid anything, which is how I don't put on weight." Clearly he must not like ice cream. So then why is he selling it to me?

What do you think of this commercial -- am I overreacting? What is the first thought that comes to your mind when you see a skinny girl eating an ice cream cone? Also, what are "crisps"?? (Chips? Cookies??)

 

 

 

Follow Charlotte Hilton Andersen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CharlotteGFE

Comments

[William Anderson LMHC]

09:22 AM on 05/04/2011

Overreacting? Only if you don't react with the same anger to all of the food industry's attempts to profit by selling us a way of living and thinking that is killing us. They and their ilk deserve all that you can dish out. I just learned of your work. Good luck with your book. Please read mine, about my recovery from obesity (lost 140 lbs. 25 years ago and maintained my success since) and my mission to reverse the obesity epidemic. I'm now a therapist that helps others to lose weight permanently and teaches other therapists as well as clients. Warning: my approach is not for people who suffer Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa. It is for overeaters who have been chronically overweight without anorexia or purging.

William Anderson, LMHC, Licensed Psychotherapist
Author of 'The Anderson Method'
www.TheAndersonMethod.com

[f0rTyLeGz]

05:08 AM on 04/28/2011

I thought it was a pretty good commercial. Better than most.

I didn't think the model was skinny.

Americans have gotten fat in the last 40 years. Ads like this encourage people to take a couple bites of ice cream, but don't eat the whole thing. ;)

[robsolo]

10:14 PM on 04/27/2011

'Also, what are "crisps"??'

Magnum is British. Crisps are British.

You however, come across as very 'American'.

[TheBlondeRaven]

08:12 PM on 04/27/2011

I always thought upon seeing David Beckham in a Pepsi commerical it was hypocrisy, because clealry someone with that kind of body cannot regularly consume that c.rap. I've always been surprised by how many believe he drinks Pepsi.

[GraceNotes]

05:44 PM on 04/27/2011

I love my mom, and usually she refrains from commenting on my weight, but one evening, in the same breath, she told me I needed to lose a few pounds, and then offered me more mashed potatoes. This commercial reminds me of that moment. And those Magnum bars are triple-coated with two layers of chocolate and a layer of caramel over the ice cream.

[TheBlondeRaven]

08:14 PM on 04/27/2011

Self-insight isn't a domineering trait in our society.

[llisa]

05:13 AM on 04/27/2011

Rest assured, most people who see this commercial are not going to over-analyze it like this. They may want to have the ice cream (or the girl, or the dress) or not. Or they might think she should let her hair go all natural or die the roots. Or they might have gone to the kitchen for a snack, or skipped through the commercials and missed it entirely.

[Abi Kinsella]

04:59 PM on 04/26/2011

As someone who works in advertising/marketing, rest assured that people in this industry don't always count on the masses having the background information that you're reporting on in this article. People may know who Karl Lagerfeld is in terms of product/design, but they might not know about his former rotund self and the derrogatory comments he made in regard to both fat people and skinny (traumatized, if you want to call them that) models. By and large, they're pitching a lifestyle product with this commercial -- they're counting that the masses will either embrace the Rachel Bilson character and want to be like her, or completely, turn their noses up to an ice cream product that shares it's name with a relatively famous line in the Trojan brand of condoms (I'm baffled as to why they didn't even consider that given the infamous, "Trojan Man!" commercials lol). If the product sells well, then they've done their job; if however, the latter happens, then they'll have to go back to the drawing board. This, like most advertising ventures, is all about exposure and money -- no one is interested in pointing out the hypocrisy, the inconsistencies or the lack of ethics displayed by any of the parties involved.

[N133]

01:48 AM on 04/27/2011

Magnum has been around in Europe/Australia for years.

[17andlife]

04:33 PM on 04/26/2011

cry me a river. my god, i am so tired of people not taking responsiblity for their obesity and blaming fast food or someone else. you know what? no one forces anyone to eat anything. it's a choice. a choice that the world is constantly telling people is not ok. it's unhealthy. it's not always attractive.
no one, no designer or marketing person or creator of a tasty treat should have to revamp their ads to shield those with no self control. it's call moderation.
i was raised by morbidly obese people. my father died of complication from his diatetes. he was fat because he sat there night after night shoveling the crap into his body. he killed himself. not the food.

[Paw1]

05:31 PM on 04/26/2011

You're not factoring in poor people who cannot afford the cost of healthy foods, which has skyrocketed in recent years. For some, poor nutrition is better than no nutrition.

[17andlife]

06:26 PM on 04/26/2011

that's a copout. seeds are cheap. dirt is cheap. there are ways to be healthy without breaking the bank. it boils down to the tragic condition in America called laziness.

[f0rTyLeGz]

05:12 AM on 04/28/2011

It's not that poor people eat "unhealthy" food so they are fat. It is that fat people eat too much "unhealthy" food. It is the quantity that does it, not the quality. Plus most fat people get little or no aerobic exercise on a regular basis.

[b4pangea]

07:39 PM on 04/26/2011

Well, at least he's remembered and spoken of with affection and respect.

[jennysez]

04:04 PM on 04/26/2011

I saw this commercial on tv the other night and couldn't help but wonder, "Why name an ice cream after a condom brand?" and the immediate thought was "Maybe the new condoms taste like this ice cream?"

[Mizz Givens]

03:24 PM on 04/26/2011

Crisps are potato chips. Do your homework.