It's Not Just Ellen

Yea, yea, yea! CoverGirl's new model is Ellen. Ellen DeGeneres. A 50-year-old gay gal who weighs more than 93 pounds.

It doesn't seem possible, right? Aren't models supposed to make us feel old and haggard just by looking at them? Isn't that what makes us run out and buy whatever it is that's making them 93 pounds and 17 years old? (Or alternatively, an all-American male and 27 years old, surrounded by beautiful girls and beer?)

Well, maybe that worked for the first 1,000 years. But amazingly, advertising seems to have turned a corner. Now you are on its radar screen, too.

Yes, you with your belly, your chin(s), your hair — or lack thereof. Our culture still may be intrigued by the most beautiful of the beautiful, but now it's drawn increasingly to the realest of the real, perhaps as a result of SSPWHNAP (skinny-sexy-people-who-have-no-apparent-problems) overload.

Or perhaps just as a result of reality TV.

Either way, "Nerdy guys are huge right now," says Charlie Winfield, head booker at Funny Face Today, a modeling and talent agency that's been around since the '70s. "That's probably the biggest thing we get calls for — guys who are not ready to jump off the pages of GQ," he says. "Like, we're working on a project for Xbox. They usually use young jock guys. Now they're using the nerd/geek combination."

Not that all of us quite understand the nuances between nerds and geeks, but the tech companies obviously are having a field day with them. At the same time, big pharma is bringing more 40ish women to the screen than two generations of feminist seething ever did. Of course, all these women suffer from some insidious ailment they are urged to ask their doctors about. ("From your gray hair, tasteful pantsuit and dog for a friend, I'd have to say it's … middle age.") Still, it's nice to finally see these ladies.

Ditto their slightly paunchy, Cialis-popping partners.

It's also good to see some bigger women who aren't all Dove users. They're on-air or in print for other products now for one simple reason: "There are people just as fat as I am," says Janie Martinez, a plus-size dancer and model. When she's not dancing with her troupe, Big Moves, she's auditioning for advertisers eager for women her size. Last week, she was up for a Diesel job, and Martinez thinks she knows why: "It's like a real person saying, 'This pair of jeans fits my fat ass, so maybe it'll fit your ass, too.'"

Martinez is with Ugly NY, an agency that started 22 years ago in London and opened in the U.S. last year. While Europe always has been open to imperfect looks — insert English-teeth joke here — CEO Simon Rogers, a model himself, saw America finally coming around. "It was just more recently that ad people started to realize, 'We can advertise directly to the people who are going to buy this product,'" he said. Thus, the lady eating yogurt does not have to be Gisele Bundchen.

As if Gisele eats.

So the question becomes: What's next? If we're awash in beauty and now its counterpoint, banality, what will pop culture throw at us next? My guess is more reality in terms of mood — frustration, desperation, boredom — and setting. Instead of pristine cars, cars littered with cups. Instead of perfect homes, messy homes, such as the one Tina Fey is hiding from in her American Express ad. The other day, I saw an ad for upscale kids clothing, and the kid was actually angry. He looked like a total pill, and I was so grateful to see him. Made me feel better about my own pills! (Er … children.)

In other words, up next are the grumpy, dumpy and/or frumpy.

And you!

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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