So I found this ad from Dove for a beauty workshop for girls, and I found it extremely compelling.
First of all, let's consider the exigence. Why is this commercial and workshop even necessary in the first place? Our society has been changing the perception of beauty for years now to something that isn't a reasonable goal for any woman. Models are extremely skinny, women in ads have flawless skin and look perfect in every way imaginable. Because of this, women often feel they need to reach these standards to be beautiful. This commercial was made to counter this. It shows the exact process that companies can use to alter an already beautiful woman to a completely unreachable goal through computer manipulation. I think it is really wonderful for a big company to finally make a stand and try to teach girls and women that the media portrayals of women are unrealistic.
The commercial is also put together very well. The woman starts out without any makeup, and it first shows how much of a difference makeup and hair can make. Personally, I think she looks perfectly fine like that, but the company continues to alter her look on the computer. At this point, the audience can see how much she was actually changed and manipulated to make her look like she does on the billboard. It actually exposes how much work it takes to make a woman look like that, and how much isn't even physically possible in real life.
Overall, I think this is a great commercial rhetorically. It effectively shows how altered our perception of real beauty is by showing an actual transformation of one woman. They acknowledged the need of young girls to have a realistic role model, and have started this program to do so. Often times it's easy to forget that celebrities and models don't always look like they do in the pictures, and this commercial really brings things into perspective.
I love the point you brought up that the model was "already a beautiful woman" before all the make up and technological alterations. I agree that she looked fine just the way she is and that the media sets a standard that is impossible to reach with out Photoshop. The commercial does a great job at suggesting that their product is as pure and beautiful as the women before the make over. NICE FIND!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this is part of the reasons that tabloids, who often make a big deal of showing unflattering poses of celebrities, sell as much as they do.
ReplyDeleteOn one level we know that the images we see on TV or in magazines aren't real. But the research consistently shows that we still find these images normative. So perhaps ugly pictures of celebrities address an exigence created by all these heavily photoshopped images.
Often I find that the doctored images used by advertisers even look fake when you see. At best they just seem phoney, at worst they can be unnerving and creepy. I personally, think that people use too much make-up these days (they end up looking silly and not at all attractive).
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