Tuesday, January 27th, 2009...7:46 pm
Dove Campaign
I just have to comment and reflect on this campaign. I saw & actually participated in it when it came out a few years ago. The Fund was developed to “inspire and educate girls and young women about a wider definition of beauty” (About). In creating this fund, a video was taken of a collection of still images put together to show a model coming in at the beginning of a photo shoot and to the final product which we see in current advertisements today. I was and still am taken back by the change of the model in the video and how the advertisement was created. I guess I just don’t understand why if this model wasn’t what they wanted for the shoot, which clearly they weren’t given the final result looks nothing like the original girl, then why would they use her at all?
Although I feel digital media has given our society another outlet of expression, it also has a negative side to it which is observed in our everyday lives. With the ability to obscure a face this much with digital processing is creepy and has led to many self esteem and body image issues (especially with females). Instead of finding the individual beauty in themselves, they are using these stereotypical views of beauty to define what the average woman should look like. Anyway, that’s my take on it… feel free to watch the video if you haven’t, look at the website, and post any comments.
embedded by Embedded Video
YouTube Direkt
2 Comments
January 28th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
This is interesting… funny thing is when I have shown the video to other classes both male and female students have commented at the end of the video how amazingly beautiful the woman was and how not-very-attractive she was at the beginning. This is an interesting thing to reflect upon in itself… that we are able to feel comfortable commenting on someone’s outer appearance in such a harsh manner.
Anyhow, the same reasoning that you put forth here could probably be made for makeup as well… don;t you think? and then consider that video that I posted about the golden mean?? the supposed “ideal” proportions of a human face.
I think that probably the photographers or ad execs chose someone with the right “core” features and then realized that with technology there is always room to tweak things to make an image “stronger” or more “perfectly appealing” Not to mention that it is likely an issue of money… if you have a model who is very good but not perfect, you can easily make changes digitally instead of searching longer and harder for the “ideal” physical beauty.
So bizarre….
What do you think?
January 28th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
I mean, I can’t say that she isn’t beautiful by the end, but isn’t it terrifying that what we think is beautiful is digitally made?
As for the supposed ideal proportions of male and female faces… I did comment on your post but I’ll comment here as well… I think the first part of that video is non realistic. Whoever was creating must have made the proportions directly over the subjects they were trying to make examples of… the female proportion was pretty much exactly identical to Angelina and we all know she has unusually large lips!! BUT the part where he changed a female into a male was pretty interesting and true.
I understand WHY the model was chosen but it disgusts me to think that she can look at these pictures and most likely tell herself “yeah, that’s me… that’s what I look like” because she doesn’t and it’s not her. Reminds me of America’s Next Top model and how the models aren’t the drop dead gorgeous girls you see in the photos, instead they are regular women, individual and beautiful in their own right… & what’s wrong with that???
A little rant BUT I do feel strongly that digital media has caused major issues with female self-esteem across the nation… and I give dove a lot of support for creating this fund (by means of purchasing their products!)
AAM
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.