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Standards of beauty in society
Impact of misrepresentation of women in the media
Media effects on attitudes towards women
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The media has increasingly portrayed unrealistic views of women in the media. Whether it be on billboards or in commercials, it is almost always the same image; a beautiful woman with an amazing body and no visible flaws. In 2004, Dove challenged those advertisements and came up with the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It is a world-wide marketing campaign with the goal of banishing the conventional standard of beauty, and defining what ‘real beauty’ is. Despite having good intentions, I believe Dove’s real purpose is to simply broaden the definition of real beauty while making a profit.
The most recent ad to come out of the campaign is the “Dove Real Beauty Sketches” video. In the clip women are asked to describe what they look like to a forensic artist while he sketches them. A second sketch was done of the same women by having an acquaintance describe their features . Towards the end, the women are shown the two sketches side by side and in each case the self-described sketch was less attractive than the one where they were described by someone else. The video ended with “You are more beautiful then you think”. There are many things wrong with the video. First of all, the sample size does not match the population correctly. It mainly focuses on fairly young, white women who could be seen as traditionally attractive. In fact, out of the whole 6:36 minutes of the clip, people of colour were only shown for 10 seconds. Furthermore, the video only focuses on the beauty of the women. The ad actually promotes the importance of beauty. Instead of having the people judge each other on their exterior, they should be judging them on their personality. Having one sketch be portrayed as unattractive and the other as attractive was a bad ide...
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...’s first priority is making a profit, which is why their parent Company UniLever also owns AXE, who use degrading depictions of women in their ads. Their ads are successful because of the overbearing use of pathos.
Works Cited
Clinch, Nanette, Asbjorn Osland, and Aline Dorso. "Is Unilever Hypocritical?." Journal Of Critical Incidents (2011): Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.
Heiss, Sarah N. "Locating The Bodies Of Women And Disability In Definitions Of Beauty: An Analysis Of Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty." Disability Studies Quarterly 31.1 (2011): 8. Supplemental Index. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Lachover, Einat, and Sigal Barak Brandes. "A Beautiful Campaign?." Feminist Media Studies 9.3 (2009): 301-316. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 8 Apr. 2014.
Lehman, Carole, and Debbie DuFrene. Business Communication. Mason, Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Unfortunately, a lot of females fall into those traps and do not consider themselves beautiful unless they’re a certain weight or have their skin a certain way. Nobody embraces their bodies and their looks besides those that society gives you a perception of something that doesn’t exist to be “perfection”. And in the Dove commercial which I used in my presentation to state the image society has given women shows the wonder of photoshop. It showed how an average woman was changed into someone with a skinnier neck, perfect hair, and flawless skin all with the magic of technology. And by using real life human models it given women the perception that if they look like that then I can
A certain value is put on commodities and services that in turn promote “consumption of products that encourages conformity to feminine beauty ideology”. (Johnston & Taylor, 2008) Media and advertising also immensely influences the way one looks at themselves and how much they compare their own beauty to the models on TV screens and in magazines. Through advertising, Dove promotes a movement to minimize institutionalized and structural gender inequality, and encourages the practise of self-care. Although its is makes great business sense, it is clear that their is a prioritization of commodity purchases above the overall message which creates brand loyalty. Dove shows mixed messages early on in their campaign as they are “telling women to buy creams, "slim" down, put on a bra and generally engage in… the "body project" (Essig, April 22, 2013) and “young girls started to worry far more about cellulite on their thighs than goodness in their hearts”.
After watching the movie, Miss Representation, I have decided to use Dove’s new Real Beauty Campaign. I believe this company accurately counteracts the emotions and anxieties facing our female population in this generation by confronting them. I believe they antagonize what every other company chooses to exploit in order for their consumers to buy their products. Using the vocabulary provided in our textbook, I will define pathos and ethos along with their sub terms to analyze the advertisement. With so many advertisements and companies influencing women of our society to conform to a mold, Dove is sending a different message. After describing the ad, I will then use the rhetorical tools I have chosen to analyze and explain them.
...ization of the Thin Ideal, And Perceptions of Attractiveness and Thinness in Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty." International Journal of Advertising 29.4 (2010): 643-668. Business Source Premier. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Beauty is often described as being in the eye of the beholder. However in modern western culture, the old adage really should be beauty is in the eye of the white makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, photo shop editor, and advertiser. Beauty and body ideals are packaged and sold to the average American so that we can achieve vocational, financial, social, and recreational successes. Mass media and advertising has affected the way that women perceive and treat their own bodies as well as their self-concept. Women are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images and hold themselves to the impossible beauty standards. First, we will explore the role of media in the lives of women and then the biggest body image issue from a diversity stand point, media whitewashing.
I was flipping through some channels on the television set one day and came across a woman's talk show, "The View." It caught my attention when one of the hostesses asked the audience of mostly women to raise their hand if they thought they were truly beautiful. Much to my surprise the audience did not respond with very many show of hands. The hostess then introduced a study done by Dove, the makers of the body soap. Dove polled over 6,000 women from all over the country and only two percent of the women polled said they feel beautiful. Women are surrounded by images screaming physical beauty is more important than their talents and accomplishments. Women are deriving their self worth from an ideal of how they think they should look and how they think everyone else wants them to look instead of focusing on their sense of who they are, what they know, and where they are going in life. In "Help or Hindrance?: Women's Magazines Offer Readers Little But Fear, Failure," Mary Kay Blakely states, "Instead of encouraging women to grow beyond childish myths and adapt to the changes of life, women's magazines have readers running in place, exhausted." She goes on to say, "This is a world we have 'made up' for women, and it is a perilous place to exist." One of the biggest culprits feeding women's insecurities are the popular women's magazine that line the book shelves of grocery stores, gas stations, and waiting rooms. They supply readers and the occasional innocent passerby with unrealistic images of what women should be instead of showing diverse age groups and women with natural beauty. Reading through a couple of magazines, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and Shape, I found nothing but hidden agendas and...
Since the early 2000s, Dove has invested millions of dollars into creating advertisements targeting women who lack the understanding of their everyday beauty. They have invested and partnered with Boys & Girls Club of America, Girls Scouts, and Girls Inc. in hopes of making a difference in society (Huffington) . Their goal is to empower women to understand that they are beautiful in their own individual way. That in order for females in society to find themselves attractive they must first find the beauty in themselves and gain confidence in themselves in order for the future generations to do so as well. In this article I will be arguing that Dove is making a positive difference in the female community with their advertisements. Advertisements
Dove started the campaign “ Real Beauty” in 2004 . The campaign’s objective was to change the women’s perception for their definition of beauty. The Dove Real beauty campaign is a marketing campaign established in order to widen the definition of beauty as well as provoke discussion on what our society deems beautiful.” The campaign consists of 4 stages of advertising. The first phase placed initial advertisements that focus on featuring women of all ethnic groups and shapes . The second phase uses commercial advertising on television it targets young women . The third phase uses print advertisement that targets older women on the 50+ age range. The last, phase of the campaign is a video that has been trending on social media across the world. In 2004, Dove employed researchers to conduct a survey in order to study how much women are satisfied with their own beauty . As a result 2% of women that where interviewed in the 10 countries chose the word beautiful to describe themselves, and very few chose the word gorgeous and sexy ” (Ercoff,2010). The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was created soon after with the hope of raising that 2%statistic.
Samuels, E. 2002. Critical Divides: Judith Butler's Body Theory and the Question of Disability in NWSA Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3, Feminist Disability Studies, 2002, pp. 58-76. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
First, Kilbourne’s research should be praised tremendously for bringing to light the unhealthy impression of true beauty in today’s culture. Kilbourne challenges the audience to reconsider their viewpoints on advertising that is sublime with sexual language. The evolution of advertising and product placement has drastically changed the real meaning of being a woman. According to the movie, every American is exposed to hundreds and thousands of advertisements each day. Furthermore, the picture of an “ideal women” in magazines, commercials, and billboards are a product of numerous computer retouching and cosmetics. Media creates a false and unrealistic sense of how women should be viewing themselves. Instead of being praised for their femininity and prowess, women are turned into objects. This can be detrimental to a society filled with girls that are brainwashed to strive to achieve this unrealistic look of beauty.
...r young, impressionable mind will have been exposed to more than 77,000 advertisements, according to an international study. Last week, it confirmed the link between the images of female perfection that dominate the media and increasing cases of low self-esteem among young women..” (Shields,2007). The propaganda techniques such as liking, sex appeal, and celebrity endorsements are used in advertisements constantly. Commercials on television, billboards, magazines, and various other advertisement types are everywhere you look in America, and sadly it has become very important for women of all ages to try to be perfect. We come into contact with these messages every day, and the beauty industry is getting bigger and bigger. Propaganda has molded our worldly perception of beauty and will only continue to hurt us and gain from our lack of self-esteem if we allow it to.
In its place of following the outdated mantra of beauty- advertising campaigns that endorse an unachievable standard of attraction as the norm, Dove’s campaign has taken an concern that touches the lives of loads of young and old women: self-observation in the face of ads that don’t mirror the realism of women’s looks. Dove is saying that it’s all right to be ordinary, and that you’re not lesser-than for not being what certain advertisers reflect to be flawless. Dove’s hard work have been eye-opening for many (and profitable for Dov...
Because the concept of real women was implemented, women were able to relate their own self-identity, flaws and overall body image to the women on the advertisements. The use of “real people” in Dove’s campaign helps people realize that average citizens can still be as beautiful as the people that are consistently portrayed in the usual advertisements. These real people offer a connection to an individual’s everyday body issue struggles and allows Dove’s audience to recognize the fact that beauty should not be limited to western societies view. Ultimately, this section of the campaign allows viewers to make personal connections to the models in the advertisements, which furthers Dove’s intentions for the Real Beauty campaign.
When asked what beauty is, most women will point to a magazine cover at a size two model — a small waist, long legs, and flawless skin. Dove has attempted to change this perspective with their “Campaign for Real Beauty”. Launched in 2004, this campaign is comprised by a series of advertisements such as commercials, short-films, billboards, and many more. Dove appeals to women’s pathos in order to market to women of all ages. The company’s strong ethos allows women to feel comfortable and believe that they are truly beautiful. A majority of the campaign is aimed at young adults but also includes women fifty years and older. The creative directors Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk strive to remind women that they are responsible for setting their own
4) Kilbourne, Jean. Killing Us Softly 3: Advertising’s Image of Women. Dir. Sut Jhally. DVD. Media Education Foundation, 2000.