Dove Beauty Campaign
Sam Gallerano
Video:
When I watched the video, I was pleasantly surprised that Dove would do something like this. Although I cannot relate to it, I think that there is a problem with how the media, corporations, and society portray how women should look and that they should hold themselves to these unrealistic standards for being beautiful and petite. I think that Dove had a unique idea when they came up with this activity, to show women that they are more beautiful than they appear and that the way they might judge themselves against TV stars and models is not how other people or the real world judges them. Despite this great message Dove is sending I did not forget that Dove is a company and that the only reason they made this commercial was to get people to buy their products. They still did a good job making it an appealing commercial with pleasing music, a modern, well lit environment, and generally attractive people in the commercial, making an effort to woo customers and get them to buy their products. This last part might bring into question the whole validity of the activity. If Dove hired specific actors or handpicked the participants based on factors like appearance, as opposed to just using random people found on the street, than it’s hard to justify the fact that the average person is more beautiful that they think, when the participants themselves were chosen based on their physical beauty. Despite this, I still think Dove did a good thing by making this commercial, regardless of their motive.
Business Insider Article:
This article definitely surprised me. Although the author didn’t seem to take a stance herself, she gave plenty of references and quotes from people, journalists, and other prominent figures who were upset by the commercial, if not furious. Many points were made ranging from describing the woman as young, thin, white, and beautiful, to talking about how the ad blames the woman for the way they see themselves as opposed to blaming society. There were also excerpts about how these woman are seen as victims and it’s patronizing, as well as talking about how few ethnicities were represented in the commercial and for little time.
Although I was never really convinced by the article that Dove’s commercial was detrimental to the way women view themselves, I did understand the points made and questioned whether I could be wrong, or even had a sexist view of the issue or commercial. But after scrolling down and viewing some of the comments to the article that seemed to match my thoughts, I was reassured. Dove is a company. When it comes down to it they want to sell more products and make more money. They had to pay their hard earned money to put this advertisement onto TV and with that regard, they can pretty much do whatever they like in it. Perhaps Dove chose mostly white participants of a certain age not because they were racist or trying to promote this idea that being young and white is attractive, but because they had statistical data showing this part of the population was worth targeting with advertisements. I might be concerned if a government agency or non-profit had made this video and aired it; but they didn’t. Dove did. And although it might be biased and not representative of the population, it has an overall good message. Dove wouldn’t have paid good money to air this on TV just to help women see themselves as beautiful, they did it to sell more products and make more money. Which is exactly what an advertisement is supposed to do.
Composition 101 at GMU 