{"id":598,"date":"2024-04-09T10:30:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-09T14:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/?p=598"},"modified":"2024-04-09T10:31:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-09T14:31:30","slug":"selling-unreality-ayds-advertising-in-the-1950s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/uncategorized\/selling-unreality-ayds-advertising-in-the-1950s\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Unreality: Ayds Advertising in the 1950s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Too fat? Joan Caulfield has news for you!<\/strong> At least that is the promise made by the half-page advertisement for Ayds Reducing Plan and Mineral Candy taken out in the October 5, 1953 issue of Life Magazine<\/em>. Before its fall from grace in the 1980s\u2013consumers could not quite stomach candy that shared a name with the then-ignominious acquired immunodeficiency syndrome\u2013Ayds was a popular appetite-suppressant candy in the United States primarily marketed to housewives looking to achieve a \u201clovelier figure\u201d fast and cheap (AP). In the Ayds advertisement, one of many different advertisements splicing up a fourteen-page long-form article on \u201cThe Man behind the Faulkner Myth,\u201d Joan Caulfield markets the candy mainly by showing off her already-lovely figure in three black-and-white images. In a fourth image, from which Caulfield is absent, a box of Ayds sits in repose amidst white carnations. The images\u2013each crisp, clean, and obviously staged\u2013work together to sell a lifestyle that is far too perfect to be possible. Then, a tension is present in the Ayds advertisement: while Caulfield\u2019s beauty is captivating and draws readers in, her portraits look too perfect and so make Ayds seem like some fantastic elixir for weight loss rather than a real, effective solution. Thus, the Ayds advertisement is a prime example of how images can manufacture a sterilized objective conception of the \u201cgood life\u201d for mid-century women to aspire to, and a further example of how that idealized perfection may be counterproductive when marketing imperfect products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All good stories need a hook and the Ayds advertisement is, after all, a work of fiction. Its visual hook is the full body portrait of Caulfield standing in her pool, making direct eye contact with the camera. In this image\u2013which takes up half of the advertisement\u2019s real estate\u2013Caulfield\u2019s make-up is flawless, her outfit wrinkle-free, and not a hair is out of place. All together, the image seems to present a wholly objective representation of beauty. While this representation is a shared archetype for the masses to aspire to, it is not necessarily real in the sense that it is obtainable by just anyone. For historians and philosophers of science Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, objectivity in the context of photographs \u201cFirst and foremost\u2026is the suppression of some aspect of the self, the countering of subjectivity\u201d (36). Datson and Galison introduce photographic objectivity in the context of scientific atlases, arguing that an image included in these texts was meant to be objective in the sense that \u201cwhat the image represented, or ought to represent, was not the actual individual specimen before them but an idealized, perfected, or at least characteristic exemplar of a species or other natural kind\u201d (42). Though Life<\/em>, of course, is not a scientific atlas, the images of Caulfield in the Ayds advertisement function in a similar way to the images Datson and Galison reviewed in atlases. That is, the advertisement captures Caulfield\u2019s beauty objectively: the utter perfection allows Caulfield to serve as the \u201ccharacteristic exemplar\u201d of mid-century beauty, the ideal that readers could observe and then aspire to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But something feels off about the portrait of Caulfield: its utter perfection makes the image feel hollow and impersonal. To be sure, its objective nature makes it seem less real by presenting an ideal of reality rather than reality itself. Quite frankly, casual candids like those in the Ayds advertisement are impossible to achieve by the general population\u2013with or without an Ayds regimen. In turn, the image generates doubts as to whether or not Caulfield\u2019s figure would be achievable by eating the candy her figure is supposed to be selling. At play here is the images\u2019 lack of what culture critic Walter Benjamin calls \u201caura.\u201d In the context of photography, aura refers to a picture\u2019s \u201cpeculiar web of space and time: the unique manifestation of distance, however near it may be\u201d (Benjamin 20). Put differently, aura is a photograph\u2019s connection to reality: those features of the image\u2019s composition that give clues as to when and where an image was taken, and so offers a bridge between that image and time and space. In Benjamin\u2019s view, the lack of aura \u201cpresages a salutary estrangement between man and his environment\u201d (21). Thus, the absence of aura in a photograph can sever any links that image and its subject have with the natural world. On a practical level, when images like those in the Ayds advertisement wash themselves of their aura, they stop feeling real or attainable. Though Caulfield\u2019s lovely figure draws readers into the advertisement, the longer they spend with Caulfield the more fantastical and impractical her figure seems to become. Thus, there is a certain dissonance between the photograph and the product it is selling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ayds marketing team sought to make weight loss feel within arms reach for its audience by presenting a pre-packaged ideal to aspire to and a product to help get there. Most obviously, the advertisement seeks to sell a product by boasting its bona fides. To be sure, the copy on the advertisement assures even the most skeptical reader that \u201cyou must<\/em> lose pounds with the very first box ($2.98) or your money back!\u201d (emphasis mine). More covertly, the images in the advertisement attempt to convey a sense of effortless perfection. Whereas weight loss may seem like a cumbersome and fickle endeavor, Ayds is casual and reliable. To see this point, consider the third image of the advertisement\u2019s set of four. In this image, Caulfield lays on her side atop a bed freshly made with white linens. Donned in make-up, a pin-up hairstyle, and a sharp white jumpsuit, Caulfield\u2019s black rotary phone and open calendar stick out in sharp contrast. The image appears as though Caulfield was just caught in her room organizing her social calendar with friends. The image\u2019s caption helps to reinforce this relaxed and nonchalant feeling: \u201cHere we see Joan checking her calendar.\u201d She is just like us! Expect that she is not. Though the objective view of beauty the advertisement presents readers is an effective hook, the image is detached from reality. Without a clear sense of aura to ground the image in time and space, and produce a sense of reality, Ayds is rendered as more pseudoscientific fantasy than clinically proven weight loss routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idyllic images of Joan Caulfield are at once the Ayds advertisement\u2019s source of success and failure. In presenting a clean, objective archetype of American beauty, Caulfield\u2019s likeness draws readers into the advertisement and allows them to dream that their proximity to this ideal is just within reach (assuming they buy a box of Ayds). The hollow and manufactured vibe of the photos, on the other hand, creates a sense of distance and implausibility, making it feel as though Caulfield\u2019s beauty is never attainable (even with a box of Ayds). Thus, this particular advertisement causes its own undoing. Perhaps Ayds did not fall as the AIDS crisis worsened in the United States. Perhaps consumers grew tired of the myth and began to see the crooked truth beneath Caulfield\u2019s clean veneer: if something is too good to be sure, it probably is. If not for difficult rebate procedures, it seems a certainty that Ayds would be on the hook to refund $2.98 back to each of its disillusioned customers.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AP. \u201cDiet Candy Seeking Name.\u201d New York Times<\/em>, 4 Mar. 1988,\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1988\/03\/04\/business\/diet-candy-seeking-name.html<\/a>. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ayds advertisement. Life<\/em>, 5 Oct. 1953, p. 63. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin, Walter. \u201cA short history of photography.\u201d Screen<\/em>, vol. 13, no. 1, 1 Mar. 1972, pp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

5-26. Oxford Academic<\/em>, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1093\/screen\/13.1.5<\/a>. Accessed 9 Apr. 2024. Datson, Lorraine and Peter Galison. Objectivity<\/em>. Zone Books, 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Too fat? Joan Caulfield has news for you! At least that is the promise made by the half-page advertisement for Ayds Reducing Plan and Mineral Candy taken out in the October 5, 1953 issue of Life Magazine. Before its fall from grace in the 1980s\u2013consumers could not quite stomach candy that shared a name with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arth.hamiltonlits.org\/fa-23-110\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}