This scene opens up the latest ad for the connected home exercise brand. In a twist that suggests blurring the line between fantasy and reality, the ad is a direct response to the first episode of “And Just Like That…” HBO’s “Sex and the City” reboot , ending with that silver event- the shaggy-haired gentleman, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), dies of a heart attack after completing his thousandth ride with his favorite instructor, Allegra (the real-life Peloton trainer is Jess King, his cheerful companion aboard the plane. bench). HBO Max, like CNN, is part of WarnerMedia.
Peloton as a cultural phenomenon
The slick but ruthless commercial features a teasing between Carrie and Big about his innocent love for Allegra, a character whose distance and two-dimensional existence on a workout device makes her little more threatening than an actual woman at the gym. The sting lies in the not-so-mild suggestion that happily ever after – even heaven – means endless spinning classes with a hot instructor half your age, not growing old with someone else. The wife that viewers … “And Just Like That …” had to witness tears and self-pity, and those “Sex and the City” fans know shed many tears because of the habit. Big’s moon flower.
The image is jarring and disappointing, according to Peloton
firm progressive Recording in an industry is often anything but, and because advertising seems to confirm the concerns of women’s aging that overwhelm a lot of the first episode of a TV series, considering ultimately, was originally created to center the friendships and sexual adventures of women, especially when they go against social norms.
Looking Back at Peloton’s
The ultimate viral ad, in December 2019, showing how much the cultural position of the brand has changed. The 30-second video of a woman receiving a Peloton as a Christmas present from her husband caused outrage on the Internet at the time: at the husband for forcing his wife to exercise under the guise of a treat. gifts, at the already slim, wide-eyed woman trying her best on a “health journey”, at a culture that rewards the affluent with expensive fitness toys and enviable spacious house to put them in. However, when a Peloton cardiologist commented that Big’s death was not due to exercise, but a cigar-and-steak”
lavish lifestyle“Can be offset by exercise, some point out that an expensive home bike could reasonably be interpreted as further evidence of this Wall Street investor’s extravagance, not must be its opposite.
It is clear that for many, the pandemic has allowed Peloton to shed its main image as an accretion of excess. Owning a Peloton (or a much more affordable app subscription) is very quickly becoming a culturally acceptable – and even more ethical – way of exercising without going to the gym. and potentially endanger public health in their own pursuit. Stock
corresponding spike, and even as it falters to these unsustainable heights, the most popular instructors have ascended to a new class of mainstream celebrities.
Icons do more than boast hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers; They were featured in People Magazine. Spread the word about
skirmishes and
new baby and more “
Dancing with the stars. “Interestingly, many of the brand’s Facebook groups already have
revealed long ago The member base is more economically and racially diverse than expected of the brand’s sleek showrooms in New York and Los Angeles, but these mainstream media posts assert and consider Peloton as a real cultural phenomenon.
This cultural awareness comes from a pandemic that has linked relatively privileged remote workers not only to stationary bikes but also to streaming networks and media feeds. societies reinforce and amplify each other. But it is also the result of developing attitudes towards exercise and what it promises, and for whom, in the long run.
The eroticism of exercise
Of course, fitness has long held the promise of eternal youth, first of all to women, whose easy markup for products and services reassured (or intimidated) potential customers. that if they just carefully follow the 300 illustrated instructions.
in a year 1961 for example, they can survive into their thirties without becoming dull and unattractive.
Fortunately, this message has evolved somewhat over time. In the late 1960s, Lotte Berk, the hostess of the barre craze, taught exercises like “Naughty Bottoms” or “The Prostitute Whore.”
as a way for women to enhance their own sexual pleasure, and a decade and a half later, Jane Fonda’s aerobics coach emphasized how fitness makes women feel.”
full of energy, healthy and beautiful“whether they have a ‘perfectly proportioned body’.’ However, the idea that exercise is the path to achieving a narrow aesthetic ideal of beauty and youth – prerequisites the presumption of sexual desire – already exists and has only become more passionate as a modern woman’s expectation.
Gay men bought and sold fitness products packaged with similar promises of aesthetic transformation. In the 1950s, body magazines were published
pictures of skinny muscular men, and with an interest in fitness, gay men can connect more freely than possible in public spaces where both racism and homophobia are tightly controlled. . By 1980, men’s gyms often explicitly advertised fitness and sexual display as intertwined – one chain in Houston featured nude locker rooms.
in a viral magazine.
Selling male fitness is a bit more difficult. Since the 1920s, exercise enthusiasts have resisted the assumption that exercise is effective by emphasizing that it will make men sexually energetic and attractive to women. than. Bodybuilder Charles Atlas’ Chronicles of How Exercise Transformed”
The weak ones 97 pounds“turning into entwined men proudly striding on the beach with girlfriends on their outstretched arms is a staple of the mid-century comic books read by teenage boys. When the Senate When then-Texas doctor Lyndon Johnson suffered a heart attack in 1955, his wife advised women worried about their husbands’ heart health to play “tricks” to draw attention to diet and exercise. more masculine training, such as using calorie counting to “keep track of World Championship scores” or “fight every pound like it’s a political opponent.”
It’s no shame that some of the most popular fitness instructors are young, curvaceous women who dress more sensibly, and are in better shape than many of the main TV characters. system at that time. Debbie Drake,
known as “the greatest gym teacher in the country,” taught the exercise on a syndicated TV show in the 1960s, wearing a collared bra and bullet bra. So many men watched her show that (male) journalists giggled about their motives, but when businessman Drake discovered “the men watching her syndicated show just to fall in love,” she began designing a men’s routine.
These efforts helped popularize the idea that considering one’s physique as an indication of normal male gender, not deviant. In 1983, Rolling Stone
declare health club “the new singles bar” in a cover story soon turned into
a feature film set in Sports Connection, a health club in Los Angeles so famous for its dating scene that people call it “Sports Erection.”
And since prostitution, the mainstream bodybuilding industry has inevitably blurred the lines between porn and exercise. “My motto is not ‘Be healthy,'” said gym curator David Barton, but “”Look better than naked. “” His club served for the first time
a group of mostly gay men, but by the early 2000s, luxury clubs like Equinox were effective
sell the same feeling as a rationale for membership.
Peloton’s latest ad brings the eroticism of this exercise to one of the
fastest growing the gym-loving demographic – Americans over 55 – but one is rarely marketed to fitness as a path to seduction. This dynamic fully reflects the times’ assumptions about sexual viability, as exercise for the elderly is often solemnly packaged, as serving lofty goals such as lifting grandchildren. or live long enough to attend their graduation, a sort of emancipation from the superficial pursuits of a slim waist or sinewy biceps.
But as much as this latest ad adds to the typical marketing tone and strategy, it still plunges us into a reactionary space. The stars of this gender fantasy fitness drama are an older promiscuous and youthful object of his affections, a combination that doesn’t challenge assumptions about sexuality and lust. as much as locating them on a stationary bike. Carrie and her friends are completely absent, seemingly still grieving.
I don’t like the super effective health care mom of 2019; The look and feel of this version of male sexual conquest in the Peloton fantasy appealed to me even more. However, I knew in advance that Peloverse offered such a wide range of experiences and sensitivities that I could go to my thousandth ride without having to conform to social norms that I found uncomfortable. However, the persistent attitudes and assumptions about sexuality, gender, and aging that have led to this phenomenon in the first place will be more difficult to avoid.
