Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
I did my final paper about the short films, commercials, and print ads of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. If anyone is interested in checking out the short film or commercials, go to Youtube and search for Dove, "True Colors" or "Girl's Self Esteem". In my paper I talked about how common media images of women is violence against women that perpetuate sterotypes and gender roles. With Dove commercials and media specifically it appears as though a new representation of women is possible. Could this be a representation of women through a feminist lens? No, *sigh* it seems it is not. Unilever who owns Dove, Slim fast, and about 3 billion other companies (that was an exaggeration not an exact number) is selective in where they want to portray women in a 'real' way. So Unilever is using the feminist idea to portray women in a truthful way and confront the ways media portray an unattainable concept of beauty, in connection with the Dove products of course, as an advertising gimmick. I talked about how the Dove commercials are considered avant-garde (from Feminist Film Criticism: The Piano and 'the Female Gaze' by Diana Saco, but really is Mulvey's idea) but spectator's may not feel pleasure in watching alternative media, and this could alter the effect the Dove commercials have on viewers, and ultimately determine whether this way of advertising will be continued.
All in all I really liked critiquing these media and learned a lot in the process. I came into the project thinking the dove media was an innovative and progressive step towards advertising, but now I realize the message upfront is progressive and a step in the right direction, however, the inconsistencies within the commercials and the company show the advertising industry has a lot of work ahead of us to accurately represent women through a feminist lens.