Some women love those Dove “Real Beauty” ads. Some women hate them. As for us, we’ve mostly ignored the “empowering” images of diverse women selling soap until today, when Slate ran a story on why they can’t get behind the Dove “Real Beauty” campaign.
The story includes this excerpt:
Dove’s appeal to righteous sisterhood is just another flavor of marketing. And it’s not particularly grounded in reality. Are we meant to believe that Unilever, the company that makes Dove, is a force for good? How to reconcile this notion with the ads for another Unilever product, Axe body spray, in which nearly every woman shown is a skinny, fashion-model-gorgeous nymphomaniac? (And by the way, Unilever also offers Slimfast, in case you’re not quite as happy with your body as the Dove girls are.)
Our first reaction: Ew.
Our second reaction: How cool that the Dove team doesn’t care about the conflict of interest with its parent company. Maybe they really do want to make a difference with women’s self esteem.
Our third reaction: No, back to Ew. We’re Kiehl’s fans for life.
posted by rachel
Mar 06, 2007 5:40PM
unilever also tests on animals, so they can shove it big time