Remember Dove's Real Beauty Campaign?
The one that took this image from Victoria's Secret:
and capitalization on it by producing this:
People went ape-shit over how they were actually showing "real" women and "real" women bodies. Remember how that was all BS? The second pictures doesn't show anything more real than the first. The women in the Dove add are just as made-up, waxed, well-lit, and airbrushed as the Victoria's secrete women. Often seen in memes at the time with the tagline "what one makes you feel better about your body?" Well honestly, the first one. Models are constantly talking about how hard it is to stay slim, stay fit, eat right. When you see a victories secret catalog you know those women are paid to look that amazing, they are air brushed, and photo shopped, they didn't just hop out of bed one morning and look like an underwear model. As a real women, I look at the second one and think "wow, I'm slimmer than all of them, but I still have dimples on my ass, scars on my knees, and weird skin blemishes." Dove was inviting REAL women to compare themselves to these "real" women, but what happens when they still find themselves lacking. Is this really the confidence building campaign they are trying to say they are running? Or an even better advertisement for skin firming lotion?
But that is not my soap box. The new Dove add is a video I saw this morning on youtube. It's my soap box!
I have to be honest, the only reason this came to my attention this morning was because someone had posted the following spoof. After watching the first video, watch the second - or not- just for reflections sake.
Now may soap box about the Dove add video: Lets pretend for a moment that Dove was actually trying to make a real point about women, and not just trying to make waves to sell products. So the science: Unless this was a double blind study (neither the women describing themselves or the sketch artist have any idea what is going on) the sketch artist is the only person this experiment is telling us anything about their perceptions of beauty. The power of suggestion here would be HUDGE even if he was trying to stay unbiased!
I don't want to over look the deep cringe I got because they had a male sketch artist in to draw the women. The voice in my head resembled that of a delightful woman's studies professor I had once, and it said something along the lines of "we are still perpetrating the stereotype that a woman should be judging herself as seen through the eyes of a man."
Here is one of the women in the add:
The following two sketches are the drawings done by the sketch artist. The one on the left based on how the woman described herself and the one on the right based on how someone else described her.
We are suppose to look at this picture and say "ahh the second person saw her as so much more attractive than she sees herself." I fail to actually see it. What if the sketches were of two different women? Would we really be saying that the second was more beautiful? I hope not!
This add is being hailed as helping women combat the "beauty myth" - while it is really just doing the opposite. The problem is that they are still inviting people to judge these woman based on superficial, culturally derived characteristics. So what if this woman thinks her face is a rounder than a stranger interprets her face as being. Are we going to say that if this woman actually had that rounder face, that she would be less attractive? I don't see a problem with a woman having a more critical perception of her beauty than a stranger. Aren't we suppose to be our own toughest critics? I do have a problem with the cultural standards by which we all judge beauty, but this add is capitalizing on them, not combating them.
We are still invited to judge these women, and judge them negativity for they way they viewed their own bodies. "You are more beautiful than you think" - It sounds like a good tag line, but I think it is missing what could have been an incredibly powerful message in its own right. The ability of strangers to see the best in people.
That is my main point and the purpose for this entire rant. If you take anything away from this video is should be that there is a lot optimism here. It shouldn't be the sad, harsh criticism for women who might not think they are as beautiful as they are. The take away psychology should be the that complete strangers were more likely to look for the best in people. I actually love it!
But it might be hard to use that to sell skin firming cream.
