Dove's Advertisement Doesn't Scrub Up to Equality's Standards
Racism? In My Advertisements? Dove lands itself in hot water concerning its recent (racist) VisibleCare campaign. By Kathy Telegina.
Everybody loves to point the racist finger of blame to the fifties and sixties—and, yes, it's true; we no longer have segregated buses, washrooms and schools. Yet, once again, the airbrushed photo of a white model graces our magazine covers, and it is her white skin, thin frame and blonde hair that personifies beauty. A size 16 body; a full nose and lips; a head of curly, 'natural' hair; a darker coloured skin—such features are hastily dismissed, often with the entire accompanying race. Oh, you can almost hear the snobbish, distain-dripping voice
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Often, this technique is used to streamline the audience's interpretation into a desired conformity.
Slippery business: the controversial Dove ad. Unfortunately, Dove's use of this persuasive technique culminates in a deeply racist message. The models—intentionally or not—are arranged in order of the darkest skin to the lightest, darkest hair to the blondest, and heaviest to thinnest. In other words: they are standing according to the societal hierarchy of beauty—based on closeness to the white norm. By combining this positioning of the models with the 'before' and 'after' charts, the text appears to advertise that VisibleCare can change a user's skin colour—and not only this. By aligning the white woman with the 'after' poster (and note that, in our society, 'after' = 'better'), the product seems to advertise: "use me for delightfully brighter, whiter skin!" (Goldwert, 2011). Harmful as just this surface interpretation is, Dove's advertisement also taps into the historic prejudices against people of colour; prejudices which unconsciously, habitually internalised racism to the point where black skin, by general opinion, couldn't be beautiful, and where the stigma of slavery manifests as supposed inferiority today.
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And, alarmingly, this message is being listened to. In a widely publicised event just last year, a child was verbally abused (by a parent!) about her "ugly" black skin. The traumatised three-year-old ended up asking for baths every day, lathering up with soap to appear white, and scratching at her skin until it was red and bleeding (Carney, 2016). However, this seems to be the exact message Dove is encouraging in its VisibleCare advertisement. I find it shocking that we, a people who pride themselves on our egalitarianism, have advanced so little in over a century to still experience the same underlying messages—the same racism—in our advertisements. If we are so progressive, why is the same century-year-old racism alive and thriving?
"Slavery is abolished," and "Obama is president," so "surely, racism is over!"—how often have you heard these so-called 'facts'? How wrong, and how utterly ignorant. If nothing else, we must applaud Dove
...ization of the Thin Ideal, And Perceptions of Attractiveness and Thinness in Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty." International Journal of Advertising 29.4 (2010): 643-668. Business Source Premier. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Back in the early 1800’s, the color of one’s skin mattered amongst African Americans and Caucasian people. There was infidelity between the Caucasian slave owners and the African American slaves. Of course, the outcome of that produced a fairer toned child. In most cases the child could pass as white. The mixed toned kids got to be inside doing housework, while the dark Negroes worked in the fields, under extraneous work conditions,”their dark-toned peers toiled in the fields”(Maxwell). From the early 1800’s to modern day, there is controversy that light or bi-racial African Americans are better than dark colored African Americans. African Americans had to go through tests to see if they were able to receive priviledges that white people received,”light-skinned African Amerians receive special priviledges based off of their skin shade”(Maxwell). If an African American did not receive the priviledges similar to white people then they would try to change themselves to fit in,”African Americans are using bleaching creams so that they can make their skin lighter , just to achieve the standard beauty”(Brooke). As much as one will not one to discuss this topic, statistics shows how people are more lenient towards light and fair skin tones.Light oor fair coloredAmericans that poseess Caucasian features are prefiebly preffered.
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
In the Dove Real Beauty Sketches commercial, the Forensic Artist interviewed different women to do their sketches and it captivates women as an acceptable target audience for this advertisement. Women be more concerned about their appearance than men does and sometimes women also worry about how society view them in public. For example, at first the women in the video was unsatisfied
Colorism in the United States is a result of the history of people being discriminated based upon one’s skin tone. For many years, the European standard of beauty has been set forth and pushed upon mainly young men and women of many backgrounds
Your skin pigment or the amount of melanin in you skin has the ability to change your whole outlook on life and determines if you will possibly have fewer or more challenges to face during your lifespan. The amount for melanin that an individual has according to society can determine if you are either the ugly duckling through societies eyes or if you are a beautiful swan. In this short paper I will be discussing the Dark Girls documentary.
Discrimination has always been there between blacks and whites. Since the 1800s where racial issues and differences started flourishing till today, we can still find people of different colors treated unequally. “[R]acial differences are more in the mind than in the genes. Thus we conclude superiority and inferiority associated with racial differences are often socially constructed to satisfy the socio-political agenda of the dominant group”(Heewon Chang,Timothy Dodd;2001;1).
Dove started the campaign “ Real Beauty” in 2004 . The campaign’s objective was to change the women’s perception for their definition of beauty. The Dove Real beauty campaign is a marketing campaign established in order to widen the definition of beauty as well as provoke discussion on what our society deems beautiful.” The campaign consists of 4 stages of advertising. The first phase placed initial advertisements that focus on featuring women of all ethnic groups and shapes . The second phase uses commercial advertising on television it targets young women . The third phase uses print advertisement that targets older women on the 50+ age range. The last, phase of the campaign is a video that has been trending on social media across the world. In 2004, Dove employed researchers to conduct a survey in order to study how much women are satisfied with their own beauty . As a result 2% of women that where interviewed in the 10 countries chose the word beautiful to describe themselves, and very few chose the word gorgeous and sexy ” (Ercoff,2010). The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was created soon after with the hope of raising that 2%statistic.
“Racism.” National Association of Social Workers. 2014. National Association of Social Workers. Web. 4, April 2014.
Racism and prejudice has been present in almost every civilization and society throughout history. Even though the world has progressed greatly in the last couple of decades, both socially and technologically, racism, hatred and prejudice still exists today, deeply embedded in old-fashioned, narrow-minded traditions and values.
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...
Racism is a repulsive issue that is becoming more and more evident to the people living in America. It is not something that is taken lightly in society today, and it can be extremely offensive to many. Even though everyone reacts differently to it, it is important for all people to make an honest effort to respect others regardless of their racial and ethnic backgrounds. People must change their stereotypical thoughts about others and help decrease or end racism by addressing any issues in which racism is concerned. Results in response to different approaches to confront the situation have occurred, but it still remains very real within our world today. Although some changes have been seen, racism in advertising is still tremendously evident due to very weak, offensive comical attempts, the unawareness of advertisers, and the depiction of society’s ideal person.
1). In order to achieve a certain result, propagandists rely on developed techniques used in the majority of advertising campaigns. Dove is a company who utilizes propagandist elements in their advertisements. Dove’s intent is that their campaign will help to solve the issue of self-esteem in women by using propaganda techniques. Some techniques Lee and Lee describe as, relating an idea to something bad, associating something with a word most would consider moral and using objects that are considered respectable and then carrying that respect onto another object (1972, pp. 23-24). These are all common ways to increase the effectiveness of propaganda and specialized to a specific audience, but the main techniques used in the Real Beauty campaign are pathos and
Overall, Sony has created an advertisement, which may be easily interpreted by different audiences as racist from. Audiences whom are affected by an ethical value against racism will condemn this advertisement for its inconsiderate use of imagery, misleading text, and use of shock. Different audiences will always view advertisements from different perspectives; however, advertisers must consider the ‘taboos’ of today’s world from a global perspective when creating advertisements to avoid such hysteria or in order to evoke it in order to receive more attention, which may have been Sony’s true purpose.
Many people believe that racism is in a downward trend and no longer presents itself as an issue. However, while overt racism may no longer be apart of modern culture, a more subtle and ambiguous form of racism has taken its place “ Modern racism, a subtle form of prejudice that tends to surface when it is safe, socially acceptable, or easy to rationalize”(Kassin, Fein, & Markus, 2013: p156). This can be seen when looking online at sites such as USnews.com, which gives statistics such as “A black man is three