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Monday, February 21, 2011

Pepsi: Destroying Body Image One Can at a Time

I was in the car with my son the other day driving home from the library. As is typical there was only over played songs I had no interest in on the radio, so I flipped to the news (my husband has been trying to get me to listen to talk radio for years, and he is succeeding much to his great pleasure). The news anchor was going along with her report when she announced that Pepsi was changing the look of their diet can. The new can is tall and skinny to celebrate beautiful, confident women.

Whoa! Wait a second. So the can has to be tall and skinny? This has been haunting me ever since I heard about it. Want to see what it looks like? Here you go:


Here are a couple quotes directly from the press release:

"In celebration of beautiful, confident women, Diet Pepsi presents the taller, sassier new Skinny Can"


"Our slim, attractive new can is the perfect complement to today's most stylish looks, and we're excited to throw its coming-out party during the biggest celebration of innovative design in the world."


Personally, I am offended by this. Thank you Pepsi for perpetuating a serious problem in our culture. Thank you for reinforcing that the only way to be beautiful, successful, and confident is to be skinny. That's just what we need.

If you are wondering if I'm upset the answer is Absolutely. I do have a bit of a temper, and stuff like this gets me fired up. I feel despair right now. Will we ever be able to embrace beauty for the many forms it takes?

2 comments:

Sarah said...

the answer is yes! it still all starts at home. there may very well always be part of the world saying that skinny=beautiful. nobody can force anyone else to believe it though. that is a choice we all must make. shame over how you look doesn't come from a soda can or from a magazine. it comes when you decide you should look differently than you do in order to be worth more- and that is a lie.

Jenarcissist @ the closet narcissist said...

I wouldn't have thought much about the shape of the can at all except for the way they worded their reasonings behind it. That does make one wonder. Whether they meant it how it sounded or not, they could've chosen a better way to say it. Hmm...I dunno.

the narcissists' diary / the closet narcissist