*Dove: substituting one farce for another

I've been meaning to comment on this for a while but stepped back to think about it some more. And now, quite a bit of time has passed but I think it still warrants some commentary. My thoughts are still incomplete on the matter, and I may be wrong in certain points of the campaign timeline, but I figured I'd try and write some of it out anyway.
(*I know this is a touchy topic, and bold still for a male to be writing on but...)

So Dove has, for some time now, made an active effort to create positive body images for women who don't fit the skinny model mold that is so often glamourized in magazines, tv, movies, and so on.

They've taken the initiative to focus and campaign on "real beauty" with an attempt to invigorate the discussion on what media does to the self-esteem and pressures placed on physical features of women that motivate the vanity fair we run in many societies today. As the ad the left states"the company made the decision to use real women" in hopes that this will boost their product and be more "real" with the people. The ad below considers the issue of self-perception and attempts to shed some light:



In this way, Dove has taken an active or rather open stance about their approach and the photoshopping techniques used to construct a fake image that the models themselves do not live up to:



 There have been several documentaries that have attempted to shed further light on the detrimental effect media (television, movies, magazines, billboards, etc.) have had on the body image of women of all ages.A few examples are 'America the Beautiful', 'Killing us softly', 'Miss Representation', and many more. There is a blog (highly recommended) that also focuses on this issue, among other things, at sociological images.

Relatively recently, Dove Canada posted an ad about a trojan horse that targets photoshoppers and what they do to get pictures into a form that is advertisement-ready:



In this particular ad, the target audience are the photoshoppers who get paid to do what they do for advertising agencies and other companies. It's in fact, a very unrealistic attempt to "open the eyes" or "wake up" photoshoppers to a revolution and stand for the principle that what they are doing is "wrong"; as if the photoshoppers are going to stop what they do and leave their job on moral grounds. This, unless you work with a premise that photoshoppers do not have financial concerns, is blatantly absurd. Money as a method of sustaining a lifestyle is also one of the many primary reasons revolutions cannot be maintained. At one point or another, people need to return to the system and make money - pay bills, buy food, feed their children, etc. etc. Escaping the capitalistic cycle is tremendously difficult.

A friend of mine pointed out that Dove, unbeknownst to a male like myself with no particular interest in women's beauty products (whatever commentary that may warrant), is under the auspice of 'Unilever' that also carries brands such as 'Fair & Lovely' "that blatantly promote racism and skewed beauty ideals in India and other countries." The operations of such a company undermines the work that Dove does. However, as any major corporation with multiple brands, it doesn't strike me that the Unilever corporation itself is concerned with women's issues or contradicting campaigns by their brands. The liberal market is about one thing: profit. Much like the satirical comment written by Oliver Stone for Gordon Gecko in the movie 'Wall Street': "Greed is good". This insulates the market, the U.S. market and those that take it as their model, from any moral accountability as long as it makes money. This is a systemic concern about the economy, the market, and how it operates, which warrants another critique that many with much bigger status and intelligence capital than I, have concerned themselves with - Zizek, Badiou, Sandel, etc.   

What I would like to bring out is some of the absurdity with Dove's campaign on "real beauty", which they justify with using "real women" in their advertisements.

 (this ad is particularly weird, as if 'real women' are only 'white women' but anyway...)

This campaign of 'real women', 'love your body', 'inner beauty' (all very nice mantras) seems to cross with another campaign that has in a way glorified bigger women, the plus-size, whatever euphemism you want to use. There is a danger with this: it excuses obesity, neglects health, creates a false notion of solution. Take for example, this sly subliminal jab that perpetuates what Dove seems to be fighting against:

This advert still enforces the statement, bigger women are much more challenging than 'size 8 supermodels' in "firming the thighs" and etc. That is, bigger women are much more difficult to fit into the mold of "beauty" that standardizes the market and the human psyche today. Now I really don't know if it is more difficult to "firm the thighs" of one type of model over a bigger model and if "skin" products are really the solution to "firming thighs". I guess I always presumed exercise and healthy eating was the way. But this ad in itself, creates the impression that skin products are, the one and only, solution to tightening skin and creating the effect that women want. This, granting my assumption just mentioned, is a gross mischaracterization.

The problem with this kind of ad campaign and its moral message is that it is limited in what it promotes. Your body is not a product of skin products but a whole myriad of things. More specifically, what you eat and how active you are - it would seem safe to say - are direct factors that influence your body. Yes, there are genetic dispositions that can't be helped. But being active and healthy is fundamentally a choice. Some people just don't have the "time" and body image may not be a concern, which is fine - live your life how ever way you deem fit to live it. Some of the greatest pleasures are palatable aesthetic experiences. If 'time' and managing 'health' are concerns on your list, there are little things in terms of food and other things - walking, biking, taking the stairs, drinking water or tea instead of 'diet' soft drinks, etc. etc.. I'm not trying to say what you should or ought to do; do what you do and love life, I'm just saying - excuses are easy and this is what Dove is doing (intentionally or unintentionally).

The moral message of "real women" and "real beauty", at the end of the day, is still selling a Dove product. Substituting one farce for another and impressing a dependency on skin products. The problem and solution to all your beauty concerns: Be "real", use Dove.


*Note: the same about body image goes for men and muscle products or whatever supplements. I only focused on Dove and its approach to women.