Victoria’s Secret Published Their ”˜What Is Sexy’ List, and It’s Pissing Everyone Off
White. Thin. Young This is frequently the standard of beauty found in our society. It’s also a totally narrow view of what can be deemed attractive, and only represents one of the many different ways people can and are “beautiful.” But seriously…WTF is up with this concept that only those who are WTY are deserving of love and attention? That’s what many are asking themselves yet again now that Victoria’s Secret published their ‘What Is Sexy’ list. And you guessed it. They’re spewing the same garbage as much of the rest of popular culture.
Young. Thin. And so very White.
So what exactly is this Victoria’s Secret list? The popular underwear brand basically created a bunch of random categories (like Sexiest Actress or Sexiest Fitspiration) and then reportedly asked the public who they felt deserved to win said categories. This was accomplished by using the #whatissexy hashtag on social media. Now, how accurate it all is is anyone’s guess, but we think that perhaps VS could have at least gone a bit broader on their eventual picks to include a more diverse set of women.
The top row of list alone is all perfectly white, thin, and young. Mandy Moore for Sexiest Actress, Taylor Swift for Sexiest Entertainer, Billie Lourd for Sexiest Sense of Humor (huh?), and The Royals for Sexiest Cast. Even the TV show cast photo is all white!
If you keep scrolling, you’ll find some token diversity. Vanessa Hudgens is half Filipino while Chrissy Teigen is half Thai. Jamie Chung is Korean-American. Indian actress Priyanka Chopra also makes the cut. But how about some black women? Seriously? There are no attractive black women they could possibly think of? Or Latinas? Or maybe even someone who doesn’t fit into a size 2? Or, gasp, a trans woman, even? Guess that’s too much to ask from the company whose bra sizes are also often on the small side.
Personally, I would love to see a more diverse set of women included in this list. Just off the top of my head: Laverne Cox, America Ferrera, Rebel Wilson, Taraji Henson… Yeah, not difficult to include any of these fantastic women in a list of What Is Sexy.
Who would you vote for on such a list? How can we diversify the standards of beauty? Let us know in the comments below!
