Some people in Michigan are really getting tired of a local plastic surgeon’s fat jokes.
A billboard for Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery which declared “friends don’t let friends muffin top” was defaced by vandals over the weekend, according to MLive.com:
The billboard was spray painted to include “You’re beautiful!” and the two muffins shown atop a pair of jeans were also given smiley faces. The slogan and the Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery office logo were spray painted over.
[…]
Tammy Nelis, office manager at Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery in Jackson, said the billboard in the 700 block of Brown Street was likely vandalized over the weekend. She said the spray paint appeared sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday morning.
“It’s truly an unfortunate situation,” Nelis said. “We’ll be making a police report.”
The billboard is one of two with the same message put up by Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery. According to a post on their Facebook page, the company said they put them up originally to give folks a laugh. “Plastic surgery is not for everyone,” the company posted in a Facebook comment, responding to criticism. This ad is not to offend anyone. It’s simply to get people to chuckle. Try to see the lighter side of this ad.”
Comments on the company’s Facebook page regarding the billboard ranged from lots of LOLs to people complaining the ad was “tacky,” insensitive to people with weight issues and just plain obnoxious. Then there was this rather poignant take down of the plastic surgeon’s advertising methods:
I have a really lovely sense of humor, but your signs just suck, majorly. Please do not think that affirmations from women saying “Hey, I laughed!” should mean you glaze over the other women-and more importantly, young girls- that read your opportunistic, money-hungry corrupt nonsense signs and get sincerely hurt, or get it in their heads that there is something fundamentally wrong with their bodies as is that requires them, by default, changing it.
I’m all for people, especially women, making their own choices in regards to plastic surgery, but in a cultural climate where we are purposely shamed and told our bodies are capital or objects that we need to make adhere to some exclusive, impossible norm and monetize on else we are ugly. useless, and unlovable, and are therefore stupid to dare to love our ugly and useless bodies, it is irresponsible to push the choice in a way that makes it about HATING who you are, when there is nothing wrong with it.
You should be trying to encourage folks and make people happy for and confident in their choice (which is a choice, not a “you must do this else you are not beautiful or happy”), not shame people into self hate until they go under the knife. That’s just awful. You have a right to advertise your business, but not to make people feel bad for not looking how YOU or others say they must.
Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery isn’t having much luck with billboards lately, it seems:
Last month, Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery took down a billboard at the near the corner of Louis Glick Highway and N. Mechanic St. that showed two coffee cups, the smaller one with the letter B and the larger one with the letter D. The slogan on the ad read “Size matters.”
Ann Arbor Plastic Surgery will replace the vandalized billboard with the same advertisement. The billboard vandal remains on the loose, so if you happen to have any gawdy, fat-shaming billboards laying around in Michigan, be sure to lock them up safely tonight.
Image via MLive.com