In 10’s two-part documentary Mirror Mirror, advertising and marketing guru Todd Sampson explores the societal crisis of body image dissatisfaction and the manipulative trillion-dollar industries that profit from it. The show will air over two nights, beginning Wednesday 8 September, 7.30pm on 10 and 10Play On Demand
Todd lifts the lid on the beauty industry to discover an ugly side – how our obsession with beauty is exploited by the fitness, diet, and pornography industries and how our image-obsessed culture can easily lead to disorder.
“We wanted to explore why we are all so dissatisfied with our bodies and what can we do about it?” Todd Sampson told 10play.
“There’s no questioning advertising’s role in perpetuating the beauty ideal, but then amplify that with social media and it’s incredibly powerful. We have a television in our pocket that we use in the majority of our waking hour, so it has a huge impact and I guess part of the reason to do this film was I have first-hand experience in advertising. I’ve been there, I worked in the industry, I understand it.”
See More: “The problem is everywhere”: Why Todd Sampson made Mirror Mirror
As a father to two girls, Todd spoke about the fact that some of the trends he discovered while creating this documentary were concerning.
“I definitely worry and it makes me question my own choices with the girls, but I try to see it now from the inside. I try to join in with them so I can understand it, because what’s easy to do is to drive it underground. What I say in the film is no one is immune to this matrix; we all live in the matrix, and so I just want to be consciously in it with my kids, help them understand it and in many ways, them help me understand it,” he said.
Todd Sampson’s Mirror Mirror. Wednesday 8th and Thursday 9th September, 7.30pm on 10 and 10 Play On Demand