The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is unlike most other mainstream advertisements. Advertisements in today’s society represent ‘gendered bodies’ in terms of behavioral expectations and cultural norms that have been socially constructed. However, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was created to provide a “wider definition of beauty” after “beauty had become limit[ed] and unattainable”. The Dove advertisement above shows women of all different races (and possibly different social classes) with real, attainable beauty. This Dove advertisement goes against mainstream ‘gendered’ advertisements in that it shows real women with attainable beauty, not “commercial realism”. Advertisements and media guide people to accept mainstream ideas through visuals. Mainstream ideas are presented through gender specific advertisements that tell viewers what it is like to be a man or a woman. Gender specific advertisements for women portray things such as sexuality (clothing and figure), and roles that have been constructed to be female. Between every individual’s self-image and an image is a ‘fantasy’. Essentially, gender is ‘drag’ and is a ‘fantasy’ of what a man or woman could be. In Dove’s advertisement there is no ‘forbidden fantasy’ that portrays what a woman could be but what she is. In today’s society, individuals who don’t conform to conventional masculinity and femininity characteristics are, in a sense, punished. Stuart Hall’s theory of the Politics of Representation states that: 1) individuals receive meaning, but remake it minute by minute, 2) meaning is constantly changing and 3) meaning cannot be fixed. The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty advertisements constructs our view of the world and bodies that inhabit it extremely differently than mainstream advertisements. These advertisements are a positive influence on the public (especially women and young girls) in that it uses real women with attainable beauty vs. advertisements that practice gender differences and portray a ‘fantasy’ of what women could or should be. However, even though the Dove Campaign is an example of what all media and advertisement (for both men and women) should be, it is not accepted in mainstream advisement. The general public has repeatedly seen mainstream advertisements to the point that these images become “normalized and conventional”. Therefore, the real view of our world and the bodies that inhabit it is being overshadowed by the messages that are continuously conveying false meanings and representations of the world in which we live.
The link below will bring you to a short video about 'gendered bodies' and is also where I coined some of my information.
I agree with the last part you said about how the real view of our world is being overshadowed by these unrealistic images. I too really liked this dove ad and thought it was very influential for young women. It is interesting that we find comfort in the fact that the people we look at in magazines are flawless. Its almost an escape from reality.
ReplyDeleteI like this because it is almost the reverse of a gendered ad. It uses the idea of a gendered body and does the opposite of it in order to sell their product. Dove is actually doing the gendered body analysis and going against the entire premise of it.
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