In
recent years, the general public has gotten tired of looking at stick figure
models. There are movements that have started to counteract the idea of the
size 0 woman being the ideal of beauty. However, since women are largely
restricted to options predetermined by corporations, the movement is determined
by what companies choose to join. In the last decade, one company, Dove, has
done a great deal to help give women confidence and to push against the norm.
This company has even created a fund to help raise the self-esteem of young
girls. While Dove’s ad campaigns have been helpful to increase the ideals of
beauty, their work is not as beneficial as it initially seems. Dove is actually
perpetuating many of the aspects of the beauty industry.
Dove is a company that manufactures
health and beauty products. They sell lotions, body washes, deodorants, soaps,
etc. for men and women. In 2004, Dove launched The Campaign for Real Beauty;
a campaign in response to a study that found 2% of women around the world would
call themselves beautiful.1 Dove has released videos and print ads
in efforts to spread the word about their campaign. There are three notable
video ads as a part of this campaign: Evolution,
Onslaught, and Amy. Each one
of these videos tells a little bit about their campaign.
Evolution
is a video about the beauty industry’s efforts to change women’s appearances
into something completely different in the pursuit of publication.2
The video starts with a woman walking in the frame and sitting on a stool. A
man can be heard shouting directions to some crew. The screen fades to black
and then words appear on screen.“[a] Dove film”
followed later by “evolution.” As the woman comes back onto screen,
lights begin to turn on and people start to surround her, doing her hair and
make-up. As music swells the viewer, the artists transform an average-looking
dirty-blonde woman into a creation filled with make-up and hairspray. The video
is on time-lapse, so what likely took over an hour to complete takes mere
seconds to watch. After the transformation, the woman models for a
photographer, as noted by the flashing lights. A photo is selected and then
placed into photo editing software. Her neck is elongated, her hair expanded, her
eyes enlarged along with a myriad of other small details to alter the image.
The camera starts to zoom out and the viewer can see that the image is now on
billboard overlooking a busy street. Then “No wonder our perception of beauty
is distorted” appears on screen. The video ends with the Dove self-esteem fund
logo. This video serves as a way to inform viewers about the Dove fund and to speak
out against the rampant use cosmetics and technology in order to alter women to
appear as something they are not. They took a woman and made her into something
that she could never be, with features not physically possible, but in a
packaged way that made her seem normal nonetheless.
Onslaught
is similar to Evolution in that it
also targets the beauty industry and how they make an attempt to change women
or tell them to change.3 Onslaught
also starts with a black screen and then the “a Dove film” and “Onslaught”
appear on screen. A young redheaded girl appears on screen. Cheery music starts
in the background, but transitions to more of rock music with the words “here
it comes” repeated five times each time heightening the anticipation of the
viewer. The final repetition is joined with the little girl disappearing and images
of ads with small women taking her place. The ads are shown for less than a
second each, not enough time to actually see what they are advertising but
enough time to notice the often scantily clad women. The body part in the clips
vary between buttocks, legs, chests, lips, and every other imaginable body
part. The video pauses at what can be assumed as a music video with two women
in bathing suits gyrating. The video returns to clips with ads for things to
alter appearance. Key words can now be made out and strung together they say,
“You’ll look younger, smaller, lighter, firmer, tighter, thinner, softer.” As
the barrage continues, the adds show a woman on a scale. Her body gets smaller
then larger and then smaller again in alternating clips spread through ones for
losing weight. Then montage of plastic surgery—everything from breast
augmentations to rhinoplasties. The ad then flashes to a few young girls
walking across the street. “[t]alk to your daughter before the beauty industry
does” appears on screen right as the young redhead crosses the street looking
at the audience. The ad finishes with the Dove fund logo. The name of the video
is quiet telling about what Dove is trying to say. The little girl is meant to
be a symbol of innocence and purity, she has not be affected by outside
influences, yet. She soon will be noticing images everywhere, an onslaught in
fact, that will be influencing her perception of the ideal body. Dove is urging
parents, mothers specifically, to warn their daughters about how companies
advertise and to have them get their confidence from internal sources rather
than external ones.
Amy
again starts in a similar fashion to the other two videos.4 The
video shows a young boy, roughly 12 in age riding his bike to a house. He sits
outside saying, “Amy” repeatedly. He looks disappointed that she is not
appearing. After it is clear that he has been waiting a while, “Amy can name 12
things wrong with her appearance.” Preceded by a pause, “He can’t name one”
then flashes followed by “Sent to you by someone who thinks you’re beautiful” and
the Dove fund logo. Amy is supposed to be a young girl who has been affected by
the beauty industry. She is self-conscious and is likely seeing problems that
others don’t actually see.
These videos all raise awareness for
the Dove campaign. They show that things are not always what they seem and
young girls are affected by advertisements, often at young ages. To place these
commercials in context of the campaign, the rest of the Campaign for Real
Beauty should be examined. In her book, Enlightened
Sexism, Susan Douglas writes that the year that Dove started the Campaign
for Real Beauty, their sales rose 12.5% and 10% the year after, hardly
something to ignore.5 Clearly women were responding to their ad
campaign. Women flocked to the company that were putting real women in their
ads.1 But, by going and buying these products, women were, and still
are, falling victim to consumerism. Dove’s campaign is giving women a means to
overcome the stick figure expectation. But, they must purchase their products
to do so. In order to break free of the pressure from some companies, they buy
products from another. Assumed power and control is only given through
consumerism.6
Another issue with the Dove campaign
is the sexualization of women. The most well known ad for the company is a
series of “real” women clad only in white underwear posing for a campera.1
They are heralded as a change in times. We will not be looking at stick figures
any longer. Ignored, is that they are being shown for sexual nature. In order
to show that the women are comfortable in their own skin, they are showing
nearly all of it. In most cases, ads targeted towards women do not have
scantily clad women in them. Those are typically for men. Many of Dove’s
products are for smoother or softer skin, which is easily shown with the half-naked
women. White is generally associated with purity and cleanliness. By having
white undergarments for the women to model, they are being given and underlying
nature of cleanliness and purity. In this case, the purity can come across as
sexual purity. Since it is an ad about women celebrating their bodies, of
course it is not about sex. In fact, it is the opposite. Because of the nature
of the ad, the marketers were able to be more sexual without off-putting their female
consumers who would normally oppose such a move. The ads are telling women that
they can be empowered by being sexual, i.e. by still being attractive in their
underwear. The ads from Dove still fall victim to sexualization.
A final issue with the Dove campaign
may be in fact something out of their control. The company that owns Dove,
Unilever, also owns Slim-Fast and Axe.5,7 It seems contradictory for
a company to be telling women that they should be comfortable with their own
bodies, but also telling them that they should be slender with large breasts
and should be fawning over men. This is a little bit like a child being in
control with what their sibling is doing. In reality it is the parent who is in
control over what both do. However, when things are related, we often associate
them together. In this way, parts of the Dove campaign are actually negated by
the other companies because of their close financial ties.
In
a world that is inundated with images that give women a narrow view of what the
ideal body, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a refreshing change. It opens
up the conversation about how young women are influenced by the media and how
the media can distort images to give unrealistic expectations. However, the
Dove campaign also falls victims to some of the old tricks such as consumerism
and sexualization as means to empower women.
2.
“Evolution Commercial (higher quality)” [n.d.],
video clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U
3.
“Dove Onslaught HIGH DEFINITION” [n.d.], video
clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOg1nWJ4T8&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL84977B65C2B85CC9
4.
“Case Study: Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ‘Amy’”
[n.d.], video clip, accessed April 6, 2012,YouTube,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFPN1WYi3E
5.
Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism: the
seductive message that feminism's work is done. New York City: Times Books, 2010. p.229.
6.
Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism: the
seductive message that feminism's work is done. New York City: Times Books, 2010. p.8.
I was really interested in Rita's Media Flash about the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, and was astonished by the Evolution video. I have always been aware that advertisements and magazine spreads photoshop models, but I had no idea the extent to which images can be altered. The fact that, after hours of hair and makeup, the picture of the model still had to be dramatically altered makes me wonder how far the these idealized images are getting from the appearances of real women. Will we ever be confronted by an image of a model or actress that simply seems too implausible to be attractive? How can we consider these "women" to be desirable when we never encounter anyone who looks like them? Perhaps this is the reason for the allure of the photoshopped model. Maybe we are attracted to her because she is unusual, even unnatural. This Media Flash really made me think about the images that are being presented as normal women, when they are more artificial than real.
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