Tag: Victoria's Secret

I Struggle With The End Of The Victoria’s Secret Show


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

When it comes to the demise of the annual Victoria’s Secret show I’m reminded of Oliva Wilde’s movie Booksmart. I fucking hated, hated HATED that fucking movie, but I also knew I wasn’t the audience. The audience was a GenZ bi-curious girl living in a purple suburb.

So, obviously not me.

And, in all honesty, it’s not like I actually sat down and watched the Victoria’s Secret show on TV. I was aware of it each year, saw clips on YouTube and that was it. But something about it becoming culturally untenable rubs me the wrong way.

I totally get that wealthy liberal women in metropolitan areas are now so woke that they now either spend money on a Peloton or, in general, just want lingerie that is more representative of how most women really look. Ok, I can accept that.

And, yet, it makes me sad that “lingerie needs to be more representative” is mutually exclusive with the glamor and allure of Victoria’s Secret. Why can’t all the various body types — including the traditionally hot ones — be celebrated? Why, by definition, is a stunning woman in lingerie a bad thing?

Anyway, no one listens to me. But the people who want to “slay the patriarchy” are doing themselves no favors by “canceling” something as popular and easily-to-understand as the Victoria’s Secret show. While it might allow “woke” people to feel smug that another oppressive aspect of the patriarchy has been felled there are a lot of men — and women — who are like me.

The Decline of Victoria’s Secret & ‘Cancel Culture’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If anything can give us some insight into what “cancel culture” is — and isn’t — it’s the gradual decline of Victoria’s Secret. This legacy brand is very much a creature of the pre-‘cancel culture’ morality, so its decline in popularity is a helpful tool on that particular social front.

I’m male and of just the right age for Victoria Secret to be taken for granted as socially acceptable quasi-soft porn that takes the beauty pageant concept one step further. But the brand has had a lot problems of late, both internally and with women’s shifting self-perception.

I would prefer that we could come to some sort of middle ground whereby Victoria Secret could continue to do its pre-2020s thing in peace for people who enjoy it, but that’s not to be. That ship has sailed and now the whole endeavor is probably going to tank because “the center has not held.”

It’s difficult to sell the concept of Victoria Secret to wealthy women in major metropolitan areas when they’ve moved on to buy a Pelton or whatever. Or, put another way, in the public sphere at least, the Victoria Secret ideal is seen as an attack on the vast majority of women who don’t look like that. I’m obviously not a woman, but just casually observing things, it seems as though macro things are afoot that are leading us to a New Era — one without Victoria’s Secret.

But I will note that if you look at the broad swaths of human history, things don’t go in a straight line. Sex with always sell and all it would take is a Second American Civil War and we might come out the other side (if, thankfully, the Good Guys win) with a whole different set of priorities than we do right now.

I’m really pushing it with that bit of speculation, however. Just like how good movies and rock music have apparently faded into oblivion, so, too will Victoria Secret join them soon enough.