Tuesday, March 19, 2024 11:16

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my latest issue: dove “beauty”

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I suspect you are familiar with Dove’s “real beauty” campaign. It has been going on for some time, and it’s supposed purpose is to show that all women are beautiful magical creatures and we must all celebrate how amazing we all are and reject cultural norms of what is beautiful. I have called bullshit on these from the beginning, and the latest round of ads featuring a “social experiment” gets me even more ragey than usual. I have seen too many women I would normally consider reasonable and intelligent turn into blubbery messes over these ads. They somehow miss all the problems with this “experiment” and how all of the women featured still fit a very specific standard of beauty. One even beyond the usual standards of the industry.

Dove “Real Beauty” Sketch Ad

While I accept and celebrate that we are all different and special for different reasons, I also accept and celebrate that this includes skill sets and talents. Some have exceptional skills in logic or math. Some are brilliant artists. Some have incredible bone structures that Michelangelo himself could not have sculpted if he tried. There are even those special few that possess many or all of these. (Natalie Portman or Geena Davis, anyone?) One or the other doesn’t trump all. Beauty and brains are equally important, and equally unimportant. Some people are destined to be neurosurgeons. Some are destined to get trash from point A to point B. Some are destined to wear clothing and strut the runway. Society needs all of these, and they all require specific skill sets. There are countless occupations such as these, and all are important. Just because one isn’t cut out for one doesn’t mean they are worthless. It means they are cut out for something different and just as important. They are just as worthy of love and adoration, regardless of skill set or physical attributes. This includes loving yourself. Yes, I dare to say it, you don’t have to think you are beautiful! It doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself, it doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy of love. It means that you are a valuable person, it means you have valuable skills. It even means that someone else may still think you are beautiful! After all, like art, beauty is subjective. All of this is fine. After all, wouldn’t life be awfully boring if everyone thought the same thing was pretty?

Dove ads are trying to take “average” women and make them models. That’s fine, I suppose. However, as I previously mentioned, every job requires a certain skill set. In the case of modeling, it requires a certain physicality and, for print work, one to be photogenic. Neither of those requirements are necessarily equivalent to beauty. Most models need to be clothes hangers. If you have ever done any fashion sketching, the proportions in sketching are different than average proportions. The closer one’s proportions are to these (longer body, smaller head, the longer the legs are in proportion, the better), the better suited they are for fashion modeling. These proportions are not “ideal.” If you look at the classic DaVinci piece “The Vitruvian Man” you would see that these people aren’t “ideal.” There has been outcry recently that the fashion world should change the requirements for modeling. That this isn’t representative of what “real” people look like. Last I checked, these models had skin and bones and breathed in and out just like every other being. They just have unusual body types. I agree that eating disorders should be looked for, however, I know that not all models have eating disorders. There are actually people who can eat how they want and are still slim. I’m related to a couple of them, but am not one of these people myself. Yet, it has become fair game to accuse the naturally slender of having an eating disorder. To tell them they are gross, or not real, or to eat a cheeseburger. I have yet to hear someone say that it’s wonderful that someone found a job that uses and celebrates their natural slender state and unusual proportions. Yet, I have heard lots of women just thrilled that Dove is bucking the trend and using “average” women. However, how average are these women? I guess if you are trying to reach the majority, which are white women, then yes. High fashion does a better job of celebrating diversity than the usual Dove ad.

I will admit that the Dove advertisers are good. They know how to trigger emotions. They use clever language to tell us just how important it is to be pretty, under the guise that it’s okay to not be beautiful. These sketch ads are especially sneaky. They have all these intelligent women watching them in tears, sad that women just don’t understand how pretty they are. None of these women realize they are being played. First, the experiment is flawed. While these are some of the top forensic sketch artists in the country, they are working under unusual conditions. They know that they will be drawing the “flawed” version that the individual sees first, followed by the “attractive” version the stranger sees. Further, in a true sketch situation, the person offering the description can see the sketch to see if what is being drawn is accurate to what they are describing. The adjectives one may use would be different than what another would use or because of limited vocabulary and this provides an opportunity to ensure that the drawing is accurate to what is being described. For instance, the word round could be used to describe simply the shape or to describe weight. Second, the sample shown in the final cut lacks diversity. We see that there were some women of color used, but they don’t get featured nor do they speak. We just see the blonde, blue-eyed, slender white women with make-up free faces. Not just a specific version of beauty, but one that is indicative of the west coast. So very specific! Finally, the language used gives a particular meaning to what is beautiful. The word “thin” gets tossed out a lot. So, thin is beautiful. If you don’t think you are thin, you don’t think you are beautiful. In fact, the words fat and fatter are used as negative. Finally, it talks about how important it is to be beautiful. In the descriptor on Dove’s homepage, it says that it is trying to inspire women and girls to reach their full potential. Apparently, one cannot reach their potential without being beautiful. They don’t say it explicitly, but they are giving a big middle finger to brains and strength and talent. At the end of the ad, it has one of the women describing her experience, talking about how important it is to pretty much everything in life to be beautiful.

So, once again, I call bullshit. You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t have to be thin. You are still worthy of love and success. You are still talented. Hell, someone will still think you are beautiful! I am the first to admit that I am a pretty vain person. I like to look good, generally. However, I don’t equate that to my worth. I am an artistic, intelligent, talented woman. That is why I will make it far. I don’t wear make-up when I go to work, in part because I will sweat it off and it will clog my pores, but also because what my face looks like doesn’t affect the quality of my work. I still go in every day and bust my ass, and create inspirational designs. I still learn from my coworkers, and teach them what I can. If Dove really wants to empower women, it will take this appearance thing out of the equation. If they are really all about being natural and all inclusive, they will focus on how their products get you clean, and function to get you doing what you need to do. Not pretending that everyone is beautiful when they clearly have their own standards of what fits that category, and insuring that we all think beauty is still important to being a productive, successful member of society.

One Response to “my latest issue: dove “beauty””

  1. […] may know how I feel about Dove’s beauty campaigns. They are insidious, and I am not the only one who thinks […]

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