The ‘Perfect’ Image
In 2006, Dove created a 75-second video called ‘Evolution’. (Piper, “Dove Evolution”) It earned immeasurable success and laurels. Today, it has over 17 million views on You Tube. It won two Grand Prix at Cannes; both in Cyber and Film. (Wentz, 'Evolution' Win Marks Dawn of New Cannes Era.") It has raised much needed awareness about how Photoshop and makeup distort images we see in magazines, billboards and any media for that matter.
The famed advertisement begins with the caption – ‘A dove film’. It begins with a close up of a girl. It is an average looking girl. She has blemishes, redness, heavyset jaw, and pretty blue eyes. She has shoulder length dirty blonde hair. In fact, one may see the hairstyle she has a million times in the street. She is no different from any of us.
And then begins her ‘evolution’. She is slowly transformed. It begins with covering up her blemishes. She now has skin as flawless as glass. Slowly, the imperfections that were not even noticeable when we first set our eyes on the girl, start fading away. Her hair is now styled and now looks like something every girl wishes for. Fake eyelashes are added and feature-defining makeup like eyeliner, bronzer, highlighter etc is applied on her face. Who knew that the ‘right’ makeup could change a person to that extend? She slightly resembles the girl we started out with.
But her transformation is not complete yet. Photoshop comes in. Her lips are pumped, her neck becomes longer, her nose becomes thinner, her eyes become bigger- after all, aren’t these features the society deems ‘perfect’? She looks like a completely different person now. A person would hardly be able to recognize the ‘average’ girl we began out with as the girl on the bil...
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6. "Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders." Media, Body Image, and Eating Disorders | National Eating Disorders Association. National Eating Disorders Association, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
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Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh- colored enamel, blend of white and cream and baby-blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils-everything working together except the color on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom.
This is a stereotype, which has been engraved into heads of men, women, and children. By plastering the world with models who seem to have it the genetic jackpot, Dove set out to discredit this cultural cast created by our society. Body image, to some people, is the first part of a person they notice. A study conducted by Janowsky and Pruis compared body image between younger and older women. They found that although older women “may not feel the same societal pressure as younger women to be thin and beautiful…some feel that they need to make themselves look as young as possible” (225). Since women are being faced with pressure to conform in ways that seem almost impossible, Jeffers came to the conclusion “they should create advertising that challenges conventional stereotypes of beauty” (34) after conducting various interviews with feminist scholars. The stance of Figure 1’s model screams confident. She is a voluptuous, curvy and beautiful women standing nearly butt-naked in an ad, plastered on billboards across the globe. Ultimately, she is telling women and girls everywhere that if I can be confident in my body, so can you. Jessica Hopper reveals, “some feel that the ads still rely too heavily on using sex to sell” (1). However, I feel as if these are just criticisms from others who are bitter. With the model’s hands placed assertively placed on her hips, her smile lights up the whole ad. She completely breaks the stereotype that in order to
Susan Sontag discusses the reality of the modern person’s addiction with “needing to have reality confirmed” by photos. Sontag says “we accept it as the camera records it” then goes to say “this is the opposite of understanding.” I agree with her wholeheartedly, as accepting photos as they are limits ones understanding of the world. The trust in photography led to the rise of pictures hoaxes, in which people take pictures out of context and assign it a new background; as well as Photoshop, which becomes increasingly popular as the years go by. Photoshop allows one to manipulate a photo to portray what they desire it to.
Many people today feel like their faces are hideous, and the same can be said for Georgina from “The Birthmark”. Almost any- physical attribute can be considered ugly to oneself, and to others, depending on what the others
When asked what beauty is, most women will point to a magazine cover at a size two model — a small waist, long legs, and flawless skin. Dove has attempted to change this perspective with their “Campaign for Real Beauty”. Launched in 2004, this campaign is comprised by a series of advertisements such as commercials, short-films, billboards, and many more. Dove appeals to women’s pathos in order to market to women of all ages. The company’s strong ethos allows women to feel comfortable and believe that they are truly beautiful. A majority of the campaign is aimed at young adults but also includes women fifty years and older. The creative directors Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk strive to remind women that they are responsible for setting their own
Stampler, L. (2013, May 23). How Dove's 'Real Beauty Sketches' Became The Most Viral Video Ad Of All Time | Business Insider. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-doves-real-beauty-sketches-became-the-most-viral-ad-video-of-all-time-2013-5
Day after day, watch flat chest develop, skinny limbs round out attractively. Skin clears to beauty, new health comes- you're an entirely new person.
(Jhally, Kilbourne, Rabinovitz, 2010) The amount of money put into advertisement worldwide in 2011 was $464 billion. (Pavlik, McIntosh, 2014, p. 268). In our society, sexism has become a normal part of our everyday life based on the ads we constantly see and because of the society we live in. Women are represented in ads as objects and not as human beings. The advertising is convincing us that the most important goal for a woman should be to become “the perfect woman” and for a man to find one. Dove has a commercial called “Evolution” demonstrating the idea that “the perfect woman” does not truly exist. They show the transformation in which models go through before photo or video shoots. The makeup applied to create a flawless face and the hair extensions attached to create the ideal look are only the beginning of the issue. After the photographs are taken, we are taken through a visual process of the editing done to the images: Bigger eyes, smaller nose, bigger lips, higher cheekbones, slimmer face, bigger chest, smaller waist, smoother skin, these are only a few of the changes they make while editing these pictures. These ads create an unrealistic and unattainable idea of
In its place of following the outdated mantra of beauty- advertising campaigns that endorse an unachievable standard of attraction as the norm, Dove’s campaign has taken an concern that touches the lives of loads of young and old women: self-observation in the face of ads that don’t mirror the realism of women’s looks. Dove is saying that it’s all right to be ordinary, and that you’re not lesser-than for not being what certain advertisers reflect to be flawless. Dove’s hard work have been eye-opening for many (and profitable for Dov...
Wolf, Naomi, Ed. The beauty myth: How images of beauty are used against women. Random House, 1991.Web. 28 March. 2014.
The most recent ad to come out of the campaign is the “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” video. In the clip women are asked to describe what they look like to a forensic artist while he sketches them. A second sketch was done of the same women by having an acquaintance describe their features . Towards the end, the women are shown the two sketches side by side and in each case the self-described sketch was less attractive than the one where they were described by someone else. The video ended with “You are more beautiful then you think”. There are many things wrong with the video. First of all, the sample size does not match the population correctly. It mainly focuses on fairly young, white women who could be seen as traditionally attractive. In fact, out of the whole 6:36 minutes of the clip, people of colour were only shown for 10 seconds. Furthermore, the video only focuses on the beauty of the women. The ad actually promotes the importance of beauty. Instead of having the people judge each other on their exterior, they should be judging them on their personality. Having one sketch be portrayed as unattractive and the other as attractive was a bad ide...
What does it take to feel beautiful? Perhaps a little bit of time, make-up, and a breathtaking dress; or at least that's what we have been programmed to believe. Without a doubt, all of the magazines, advertisements, and make-up beauty tips have influenced women’s beliefs about what it means to be beautiful. An artificial image of beauty has been imposed on each and every woman in our culture.
Surveys showed women in general lacked confidence in their appearance and would not describe themselves as beautiful or attractive. For example, Exhibit 4, "The Real Truth About Real Beauty: A Global Report” shows that 44% of women in the United States in 2004 “do not feel comfortable describing [themselves] as beautiful”. Marketing the idea that women in their natural forms are indeed beautiful and should be accepted by society was the premise of the whole campaign. This idea was a effective because it identified the consumer’s feeling and attitudes towards beauty and responded to it. Instead of having to market different products, Dove’s motion to challenge society’s views on what defines beauty was indeed a successful maneuver to bring millions of consumers to identify more closely with the brand. It also was a marketing campaign that had a very different message from other beauty products at the time, which made Dove stand
[This] phase of the campaign was created to debunk the stereotype that only thin is beautiful” (“The Dove® campaign for real beauty”, n.d.). This part of the campaign was monumental because “all women in the ad are real.” (Fielding et al., 2008). Because the concept of real women was implemented, women were able to relate their own self-identity, flaws and overall body image to the women on the advertisements. The use of “real people” in Dove’s campaign helps people realize that average citizens can still be as beautiful as the people that are consistently portrayed in the usual advertisements. These real people offer a connection to an individual’s everyday body issue struggles and allows Dove’s audience to recognize the fact that beauty should not be limited to western societies view. Ultimately, this section of the campaign allows viewers to make personal connections to the models in the advertisements which furthers Dove’s intentions of the Real Beauty
Alexandra Scaturchio, in her article “Women in Media” (2008) describes the media’s idea of beauty as superficial. She supports her argument by placing two pictures side-by-side; a picture of a real, normal-looking woman and her picture after it has been severely digitally enhanced. Her purpose is to show young teenage girls that the models they envy for their looks are not real people, but computer designs. She also states, “the media truly distorts the truth and instills in women this false hope because…they will live their lives never truly attaining this ideal appearance”. Scaturchio wants her readers to realize the media’s distorting capabilities and feel beautiful about themselves, even with flaws.