You know those lovely commercials that try and empower women by saying they are all beautiful and yet all the people in the commercial look the same? How about those commercials that have same sex couples and don't just have them as a novelty? Yeah. They don't happen very often. But thanks to H&M, many groups of women have a spotlight, and it's fantastic.
Earlier this week, I saw the new H&M commercials about the new line they have called #Ladylike, which is a new line of women's clothing, and let me tell you, I am now a huge supporter of H&M.
Why is that?
Because they actually portray women for who they are, and none of them look alike. They have women with shaved heads, women who don't shave anything, women with short blonde hair, women with thick, dark, and curly hair. They have women of all sorts of nationalities and ethnic groups. They even have a plus size woman modeling hot underwear, not just beige spandex.
The thing that stuck out most to me though, was the use of LGBT individuals in the commercial.
How often do you see commercials that just casually insert someone who is part of the LGB community in a commercial without it being a big deal? Not very often. However, there are two girls kissing each other as the ad plays at the end, and it is a beautiful scene. So long to these ideas that a woman has to run away with a man to be happy in a modeling gig. Women can find their own power through whoever they chose to love, especially if it's in themselves.
The thing that got me most excited those, was the fact that they had transgender women modeling their dresses, and showing that they are as ladylike as the rest of womankind. The fact that they see all these women as the same is fabulous, and the fact that they include the queer community is great.
All too often the queer community is ignored or inaccurately portrayed in commercials. Many times they are seen as the token gay person, or even worse, as frivolous and flamboyant. H&M finally highlights a side of the queer community that is just fabulous, and on top of that, empowering.
Empowerment is everything in this day and age. Everyone needs a little bit of it to move forward in life. So thank you H&M for queering up your commercials and ads, and on top of that, thank you for showing that women of whatever size, age, race, gender presentation, sexual orientation or pretty much any diverse factor, can wear your clothes and look fabulous while doing it.
