To the right we have a skimpily clad Jessica Alba, posing with
a cocktail just six months after the birth of her baby. You might be
thinking, “What’s the big deal? Yet another celebrity with a personal trainer
and a personal stylist looks like a model mere months after giving birth. Who
cares?” You may have a point.
Or this photo shoot may be a little different—because when
Campari’s photographer chose Alba for their 2009 calendar, he was not thinking
about showing off her “post-baby bod.” He was simply looking for someone who could
best, ah, embody Campari’s mission of bringing its customers “twelve months of
pure Red Passion.”
Putting aside my personal feelings about Jessica Alba (and
the absurdly liberal use of photoshop in these pictures), I found myself
interested in the 2009 Campari calendar for its blatant sexualization of a new
mother. I’m certainly no proponent of sexualizing new moms (or any young women)
to sell a product, but I found myself wondering if there was something a tiny
bit cool about the media’s willingness to view sexiness as independent of
motherhood (inasmuch as any impossible-standards-of-beauty marketing can be
cool).
Then again, no media outlet that has covered the story so far has
refrained from oohing and ahhing over Alba’s amazingly slender, yet curvaceous “post-baby
bod.”
What do you think: yet another example of making women feel
that they should be both devoted mothers and fit, sexy women, or an example of a decidedly sleazy campaign widening, ever so slightly, the definitions of sexiness and motherhood?
Photo: Jezebel
