You may have seen ads in the subway from Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, which used size 4-12 models of all shapes, colours, and ages to promote its body cream, instead of the usual 0-2 Kate Moss lookalikes. Dove touted its campaign as showing “a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty.”
Equity Studies student Yuvraj Joshi, however, sees the campaign as a clear attempt to sell brand identity under the veil of “creating a loving emotional relationship” with the consumer. The seemingly diverse images are still selective, not representing the everyday woman and “not creating change that is desirable,” said Joshi.
Joshi tackled the issues of Dove’s brand power and its influence on women’s body-image during this week’s “Xpression Against Oppression” program. The SAC-hosted series on social justice gave Joshi the chance to ask “what Dove’s got to do” with positive social change for women.
Dove says they launched the ad campaign in response to the findings of a company-sponsored study, that only two percent of women world-wide consider themselves beautiful.
“Dove doesn’t have the authority to define real beauty,” countered Joshi, arguing that the desire to sell more products will affect whatever message the company sends.
Although Joshi allowed that the campaign “is widening societal perceptions of beauty,” he was adamant in accusing Dove of narrowly defining beauty in terms of physical appearance. Instead of spotlighting inner beauty, he says, the Dove campaign uses ads to ask whether wrinkled can be wonderful or if a half-full bra is more attractive than a half-empty cup. Are brands like Dove morally concerned about women’s body-image issues? Joshi sums up the answer with “when ethics pays, it pays to be ethical.”
Xpression Against Oppression continues on St. George campus until Friday night, including spoken word event “Rhyme and Reason Against State Terrorism,” staged by the Political Hip Hop Association, tomorrow in UC’s JCR. On Friday, the first Canadian war resister will be part of a panel organized by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Medical Sciences building.
