Victorian Visual Culture

Sydney Sweeney and the Dr. Squatch marketing team did not need to create a false utopia to market bathing soap. Selling bathwater related items has happened before and frankly, I don’t see the appeal. In class, we discussed soap advertising and its visual representation of women as care takers in the Victorian era, and its effects on how women are viewed. Many soap advertisements came about during a new reconstruction of society, suggesting cleanliness to be a moral right and being dirty a moral wrong. Women were often representatives of these advertisements, but not just any women, rather they were white, beautiful, and matched the image the society wanted to go with. In contemporary times, advertisements are seen as completely inclusive, distributing equal jobs between genders such as childcare and cleanliness. However, there are still some visual representations that enter the sphere and often cause controversy. For my final paper, I wrote on the negative effects that the Sydney Sweeney “Bathwater Bliss” soap could have on future generations, and ways that advertisers could pivot to more inclusive advertising. There are many advertisements around the internet, but the one I focused on features Sweeney in a bathtub with beautiful scenery in the background. Though the advertisement may seem harmless it is very similar to a Pears’ Soap ad seemingly showcasing the same background of Grecian columns and hardly clothed women either draped in silk or covered in bubbles. While one advertisement shows a woman at work (bathing a child), the other advertisement shows leisure without labor (a concept introduced by Anne McClintock in Imperial Leather). Pears’ Soap’s slogan “For the Complexion” is very telling to who its target audience is, white housewives whose ideas of cleanliness were changing. Sweeney’s custom slogan provided by the internet read “Sydney Sweeney wants you to quit being a dirty little boy.” These advertisements seem empowering, however they reinforce that women are merely spectacles to show and sell household items. It must change to actually empower women rather than use them as objects.