Glamour

According to Practices of Looking, glamour is the desire to reach an ideal state of perfection. Advertisers harness this desire in order to convince the consumers that it is necessary to buy their product. We are all led to believe that glamour can only be achieved by getting rid of any physical flaws. We live in a society that values perfection so much that it is easy for advertisers to market these miracle cures. Still, no matter how hard one tries to reach glamour, we can always be told that there is room for improvement.

In Getting Ahead in Advertising, the main character is one of these advertisers. He built his career on convincing consumers that they needed flawless skin, white teeth, or flake-free shiny hair. Through his job, he himself was following his own life of glamour. That is, until the negative side of glamour showed its ugly “head”. This desire to reach the ideal state of perfection became such a huge part of his life that it eventually consumes him. He learns that he must reassess his idea of “perfection” before he loses his grasp on reality.