To the Advertisers Marketing ‘Bodily Perfection’

The MTR––Hong Kong’s labyrinthic metro––is an incredible place. It is unusually sanitary, free from the stench of ammonia, and has helpful directions pasted on almost every wall around you. It can take you from Hong Kong Island all the way to the sprawling New Territories in a matter of minutes and for less than the price of a quick meal. 

But there’s a catch, an insidious thing that snakes around every station, clinging to its walls, impossible to miss. Take any escalator, and it’s there to assault your eyes. Wait at the platform, and it’s there to leer and pick at your insecurities. Try to look away from them, and it’s there on the opposite wall, all lit up, abrasively placed in your line of sight. If you live in Hong Kong, it’s highly likely you know exactly what I’m talking about. 

Advertisements. The ones that perpetuate toxic and highly unrealistic beauty standards: a woman’s breasts being blown up like balloons; a waist aggressively shrinking down almost as if to crush the organs within; an image of a ‘formerly ugly’ woman’s face morphing into that of the Asian beauty ideal on a giant, glaring screen. Perfect, hairless, unblemished, gleaming, scantily-dressed female bodies. It might not seem like much––it’s just an ad, after all––but it is. This is what drives up rates of anorexia, what urges girls and women alike to despise the way they look, what relentlessly attempts to box the female body and thereby women into the limited space of what is ‘acceptable’ or ‘perfect’. 

Here are just a few images I took of such ads while waiting for the train to arrive a few days ago, rage and frustration simmering in my veins.

Advertisement #1: 

Caption: In TWENTY-FIVE days, it claims, YOU CAN LOSE TEN TO FIFTEEN POUNDS! With the help of an
EIGHT-star super-slimming machine, they will help you BRIGHTEN your skin, REMOVE YOUR FAT without using needles, MAGICALLY DRAW WATER out of your cells, and somehow TIGHTEN YOUR WAIST too! You can look just like BOSS LADY here! Sadly, this is a direct translation. 

First of all, there are plenty of ways to lose ten to fifteen pounds.

These ways are not just limited to strapping ourselves to some alarmingly expensive machine. In fact, you could lose half your  body weight in a matter of seconds by yanking your organs out, or by decapitating and dismembering yourself. Would that be healthy? Nope. Would you be fifty pounds lighter? Certainly.

Second of all, it’s unlikely that skin will ever glimmer and sparkle under the sun unless you’re a hundred-something-year-old Twilight vampire with a penchant for wanting to kill the seventeen-year-old girl you’re in love with. If that’s the case, the weird and seemingly diamond-studded skin should be the last thing you’re worried about. Try moisturiser if you want nourished, healthy skin. And try Edward Cullen if you want sparkly skin. 

Then there’s the fat removal part; the fatphobia is strong in this one. What a huge relief that no needles are involved; thank God that they’re using surgical tools or even their bare hands to rip out chunks of fat from your body instead! Body fat is normal, healthy, and does not exist to be  violently torn away (without needles, mind you) by anything or anyone. Another part that particularly irks me about this ad is the water-draining-from-cell-concept. The average human cell is composed of 70% water, so removing fluid from it would do us far more harm than good. Unless, of course, being a desiccated husk is an up-and-coming fashion statement I’m not aware of. It’s abundantly clear that none of the information propagandized on this advertisement is grounded in science––at all. 

Not to mention the ‘tightening your waist’ service. I’m genuinely curious as to how this works. Do they cut you open, remove a vital body part or two, and sew you back up like Frankenstein’s monster? Do they stick you in a corset tight enough to split you in half so that you can barely breathe and emerge waistless? Or, as promised, do they just rip out limbs and fat before draining out all the water from your cells so that you end up becoming a waist-free, shapeless lump? Regardless, it appears that many consumers have come to believe that these procedures are somehow worth throwing ten thousand Hong Kong dollars on. 

My ideal Boss Lady is someone who’s confident, comfortable, and happy in her own beautiful body, undeterred by the ridiculous advertisements littered around MTRs and determined to spread some self-love and body positivity. 

Wouldn’t that be a whole lot better? 

Advertisement #2:

Caption: Come and try out the Body Tighten 30 at Dr Reborn: attach yourself to this terrifying ultrasound-slash-vacuum-cleaner-esque contraption and emerge in pink silks and high-heels! We’ll tighten your waist, private parts, and relieve any bodily pain you’re feeling! 97.9% of customers are satisfied with the end result. Next stop…”perfection plus-one”.

Need I really explain why this one is problematic?
It’s really quite self-explanatory, honestly.

When I was younger, my friend and I would cackle with laughter every time we passed by the giant DR REBORN ads plastered around Hong Kong’s MTRs
and cross-harbour tunnels, at the Asian barbie with twinkly eyes and cheesy smiles, or the hypermasculine, super-buff guy ––toxic masculinity, y’all! (up next, me ranting at that) –– flexing his biceps. We pictured fully-grown humans being shoved back into the womb and coming out as screaming babies coated in blood, poop, and other slimy shenanigans and laughed so hard we couldn’t breathe. Now, though, it just makes me sad. 

Especially the part about ‘tightening’ your nether regions. The misogynistic implications are there: that women with loose vaginas are promiscuous or slutty, and that having tighter vaginas make them more desirable. If you decide to undergo these procedures for health reasons (e.g., in the case of women who experience vaginal tears following giving birth), then by all means, go ahead. 

However, I think that if you are choosing to undergo these procedures based on someone else’s opinion of how your body should be, I would strongly suggest that you think twice before making any radical changes. Sure, 97.9% of customers are satisfied with splurging a few thousand dollars on such procedures––that’s a very precise number, by the way –– but wouldn’t 100% of them be satisfied with their own bodies anyway, if these ads and their unrealistic expectations didn’t bombard them everywhere they went? 

Humanity doesn’t need a line of identically manufactured human barbies that are ‘perfection +1’ thanks to Dr Reborn’s creepy Body Tighten 30, and it’s thoroughly disappointing to see that so many people have been conditioned to believe it does. 

I have always championed and always will champion freedom of choice.

I am, for the most part, powerless to tear these advertisements down from the walls and set them aflame. I cannot and should not stop anyone from exercising their freedom to have ‘beautifying’ surgical procedures performed on their bodies. But at the same time, wouldn’t it be nice if women could have that very same freedom to love and enjoy their bodies without external influences constantly telling them not to be comfortable in their own skin? Food for thought. 

To the advertisers marketing ‘bodily perfection’ with no apparent regard for the very real, very damaging effects of what they do: please take the time to think about the women and girls who have to deal with your inane ads. 

To the women and girls who have to deal with the inane ads: I hope we always question––and rebel against––the constricting and unjust expectations placed upon us by the status quo.

And that we remember to try and love our bodies and ourselves, as hard as it might be. In the end, your body and the choices made with it are up to you. You and no one else.