What’s particularly icky is the prescriptive nature of what constitutes good-looking. False eyelashes and a fake tan meet the bar, but lips without lipstick are unattractive? Being eye candy, at least as part of the “job,” is fine. Johnny Depp is eye candy. Jennifer Lawrence is eye candy. Any woman athletic and fit enough to be a cheerleader will be good-looking enough to, IMO, be eye candy; it comes with the territory of being healthy and glowing and all that.
But the notion that a particular, stamped-out-of-the-mold look should be privileged over other slightly different (but equally fit) looks isn’t about eye candy. It’s about the embedded assumption that the only flavor of eye candy that is really okay is Barbie flavored. Frankly, that’s not just dehumanizing for women – it also makes a pretty insulting assumption about what the guys in the stands are able to perceive as “attractive,” too.