Those Dove Ads Are Penance

I get the feeling that those Dove ads are much newer in the US than in Canada. We’ve had them for, what, a year up here? Regardless, via Boing Boing, here’s an insightful analysis about how unreal those ‘real curves’ still are.

Sure, their underwear is kind of drab, but every model has flawless skin, shiny hair, a radiant smile, and not a dimple of cellulite anywhere on her “real” body. None of them have flab or wrinkles. And their breasts are perfectly perktacular! I’m definitely in the audience of “real-bodied” women the ads are aimed at, but I don’t see my body up there. I see the same old airbrushed cuties, except with less makeup, slightly more muscle, and no Victoria’s Secret.

She makes a great point, and one that didn’t really occur to me when I first saw the ads. To me, it was a classic Rebel Sell, with a penitent Unilever corporation apologizing for propagating the Beauty Myth for 50 years or so.

Some of the ads in Manhattan are being creatively doctored.