By Samantha Sidi ’16, Arts and Entertainment Editor

With the upcoming airing of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, it is hard not to reflect on the way that these Victoria’s Secret Angels influence women. The show features around 40 Angels who model from the Victoria’s Secret and PINK, the brand’s line that is marketed towards young women, and high-profile musical guests. Since 2010, the show has received over 9 million views each year, which consists of impressionable young women and mass media attention.

Beautiful, skinny, and seemingly perfect are three ways to describe Victoria’s Secret Angels. The connotation of ‘Angel’ perpetuates the pervasive obsession with being like these women. Women frequently want to emulate the Angel’s toned bodies and razor-thin legs because of society’s beauty standards. Yet, it is inherently problematic that these standards are unrealistically achievable. Women harm themselves emotionally and physically in attempts to be like  Victoria’s Secret Angels.

Media plasters the faces of the seasoned angels like Alessandra Ambrosio and Lily Aldridge and the newest angels like Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid. The omnipresence of discussion about these Angels on social media, television, and magazines demonstrate how the damaging beauty standards persist in every woman’s daily life. Through attempting to emulate these ideals, harmful behaviors emerge in young women, like body image distortion and dissatisfaction and eating pathology. The psychological harm that comes from labeling the Angels as the beauty ideal is just a part of the problem.

The fashion industry in general majorly contributes to society’s unrealistic beauty standards, which is why it is imperative for us to point out how completely unfair and sexist it is to be expected to look like these Angels. These women’s livelihood depends on their thinness, which they may attain through intensive exercise and unhealthy eating habits, but are projected to look as though it is easy for them to be this thin. This is why I have a problem with the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show; I do not want the continued perpetuation of the thin-body ideal to be what is expected of society. It is inherently unethical and psychologically damaging to make young women think that is it expected for them to live up to these unrealistic beauty standards. Therefore, I urge the Newark Academy community to reflect on how the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and its perpetuation of the unrealistic beauty standards affects us with body image dissatisfaction or distortion. Chances are, many others are feeling the same way.