It all started with those Dove ads that show all the hot, mostly naked girls in weirdly desexualized lingerie with the tagline: ?Real women have curves.? I can only assume it?s from this sentence alone that we are supposed to guess that the women in the ad are fat or have otherwise culturally unacceptable bodies (a few are people of color, one has a large tattoo, another is sort of tomboyish). The ads are part of Dove soap?s ?campaign for real beauty,? another tip-off that we?re supposedly looking at women larger than the usual ?unreal? models.
And yet if it weren?t for Dove?s helpfully-condescending slogans for these women, I would never have pegged them for ?real.? 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.
In New York, people with magic markers started doctoring the ads with occasionally fat-phobic, occasionally anti-corporate, and occasionally utterly random comments. In Dusseldorf, a local branch of zippy advertising agency Ogilvy took up space on local bus stops with a parodic campaign for real men?s bodies.
That?s when the new craze for ?real? women took off. Nike launched its ?big butts, thunder thighs, and tomboy knees? campaign, which only exists in print and online ? perhaps because the TV audience isn?t ready for such ?frank? representations of unfeminine body parts on women. Like the Dove ads, these Nike spots revel in women whose bodies are supposedly unlike those of fashion models. They also include unusually beautiful women of color in with ?real? unskinny or boyish women. According to an AdAge story:
Trend expert Faith Popcorn of Brain Reserve, New York, said the shift did not start in advertisements. “No copywriter did this,” she said. “It started when we started to celebrate the black and Hispanic culture. In those cultures you can be a little ‘butty’ and even have a little mustache, too, and it’s considered cool and attractive. Now these white girls are looking at themselves and saying, ‘I don’t want to be a stick, I want to be natural.’”
One is left with the weird sense that not being white is somehow the cultural equivalent of being fat or hairy, two natural feminine states that advertising often tries to cure.
When I watched a commercial on Nike?s website of a woman caressing her ?thunder thighs,? I was once again struck by the unreality of the body in front of me. I saw two muscular thighs, not particularly large, framed by a pair of trim (Nike) gym shorts. If those delectable gams were supposed to be almost unacceptably heavy, then my own body is much farther beyond the pale than I ever realized.
As for the Gap?s new lines of women?s jeans – ?curvy,? ?original,? and ?straight? – I stared and stared at pictures of the three supposedly different body types the jeans are designed to fit, looking for differences. But I was only able to discern that the model who wore ?straight? actually stood perfectly straight, while the ?curvy? model had cocked her hip into an exaggerated C shape. An AP article about the new jeans tells us helpfully, ?The new curvy fit is for the woman whose waist is considerably smaller than her hips - whose jeans often gap at the back of the waistband. There?s a deeper curve in the seam shape, eliminating extra fabric at the top.?
What the hell does that mean? Julie Vaughan, Gap?s senior director of denim design, clarifies: ?We designed the jean on a curvy model. The curvy has a contoured waistband. It hugs the waist, and it has an easy fit through the hips and thighs.?
So curvy means curvy and you figure out what they?re trying to get at. You?d never know from actually looking at the Gap?s ads for the new jeans featuring preternaturally firm asses. The other day, as I headed to the men?s section of the Gap to buy pants, I reflected once again that I never see myself represented in fashion ads aimed at women. I only see myself in the men?s ads. Men have such reassuring ways of sizing their pants – I can buy 34 30 instead of ?curvy? or ?thunder thighs.? I guess I?d rather be a number than a ?real beauty.?
You do know what the Dove ad is trying to sell right? It?s selling a new firming line of products, which could be one of the many reasons you don?t see cellulite.
Comment by DanGarion 8/23/2005 @ 2:33 pm
That Düsseldorf ad campaign is not as parodic as you seem to think. It is rather a ?artsy? self promotion. Apparently the men on the posters are the ?creative minds? behind the Dove campaign.
The line on the poster translates: ?No models, but firm-bodied Dove advertisers of Ogilvy?s Düsseldorf?.
Comment by bvdm 8/23/2005 @ 4:39 pm
bvdm is right; the campaign was created by Ogilvy in New York.
Comment by 8/23/2005 @ 6:27 pm
Dove is a subsidiary of Unilever, which also owns Ben & Jerry?s. I?d like to see them try this marketing campaign on something that makes you fat!
Comment by Gurgly 8/23/2005 @ 8:23 pm
Paul is only half right. The ?real beauty? campaign was created by Ogilvy London together with Ogilvy Chicago in the US. (Basically the campaign was created worldwide. The men in Düsseldorf are the ad execs working on the Dove account in Germany.
Comment by dabitch 8/23/2005 @ 8:43 pm
Gurgly, Unilever also markets that Axe/Lynx deoderant that show all women turn into brainless sex crazy babes as soon as a man sprays it on. Wanna see that campaign mashed with this one? ;)
Comment by dabitch 8/23/2005 @ 8:45 pm
I think the ads are clearly intended to be parodies even if they feature real ad execs from the company that made the original ads. Ogilvy is famous for its smart, ironic advertising and it seems to me perfect that they?d be promoting themselves in a self-parodying way. Yay for advertising post-modernism.
And I agree with gurgly ? I?d love love love to see ads like that with women eating Ben & Jerry?s ice cream.
Comment by annalee 8/23/2005 @ 8:48 pm
The Thai version is slightly more typical of the average size models we?re all use to lusting after. I appreicate the fact Dove is trying.
Comment by matt 8/23/2005 @ 8:59 pm
Unilever also owns Axe, that horrible-smelling body spray with the contemptible commercials.
Comment by Lauren 8/24/2005 @ 4:13 pm
I?ll bet Ogilvy didn?t do the Axe ads, which I always thought were sort of a counterpoint to those Herbal Essences showergasm spots. My shampoo is hotter than my vibrator!
Comment by annalee 8/24/2005 @ 4:25 pm
The article is interesting, but frustrating because I feel like it undercuts any feminist media criticism that actually makes sense. Of course it?s a complicated issue, but in the Dove campaign?s instance, body types that are usually ignored are being targeted (since they are who will use this product) and glorified (since they are - again - who will use this product). And in order to celebrate something, you need to actually recognize and identify it.
That seems to be the big problem here; it isn?t the use of the particular models (who are atypical for your standard mass print campaign), it?s the euphemisms of ?real beauty,? ?tomboy knees,? etc., that you seem to find objectionable.
So, I ask, what DO you want? I assume you would endorse a sense of pride and ownership over one?s bodytype - although you shirk from names like ?curvy? or ?womanly.? You are the one assigning negative connotations to them - not the media, in this case.
As long as you, a mouthpiece for feminist media criticism, are unwilling to embrace and be proud of having a body that fits the description of ?curvy,? (which, by pure definition, simply indicates a higher waist-to-hip ratio) they?re going to keep trying to find ways of making it marketable. Until then, you?ll keep preferring to buy your 34 30?s.
The media is the bad guy in plenty of cases. This isn?t one of them. Let?s focus our efforts somewhere a little more sensible.
Comment by Lacy 8/27/2005 @ 3:25 pm
Lacy,
Mellow out. I read the article and I agree with her. I am a curvy woman of a certain age and I can?t find squat. None of the models ever looks like my type and trying to find clothes that fit is an absolute nightmare. I also would prefer to shop by number, it would make it more consistent from store to store.
The models are a little too perfect. As if they are the starting point, not the end. And I already have really great skin in both tone and texture. The average woman is not going to think that those models are overweight with skin dimpling.
Comment by Debra 8/28/2005 @ 3:48 pm
actually, i kind of agree with lacy. these are commercial ad campaigns, not public service announcements. they?re not about making women feel good about themselves. they?re about making you want to buy their products. if you feel fine just the way you are, why would you buy their products? what these particular ads are trying to do is two-fold:
1) show you an ideal that you will strive for by buying the product (which all ads try to do)
2) create a loyal following among women sick of being shown an impossible ideal, who will appreciate the effort here of being spoken to directly and ?celebrated?.
the latter is what is innovative about these campaigns. of course it?s completely cynical and manipulative, but all ads are. i suspect that these campaigns come less out of the sudden enlightenment of ad execs and more out of studies and focus groups and sales data showing that women are starting to respond to more realistic ideals with hard cash down.
as for me, i?m glad of the whole scenario, because my expectations of commercial advertisements are incredibly low, and i?m just so relieved to be able to look at something that doesn?t make me feel like absolute shit. plus, it WILL teach our young ?uns to broaden their ideas of acceptable shapes and sizes ? if it lasts long enough.
Comment by claire 8/28/2005 @ 8:07 pm
I refuse to be excited by these ads, and I don?t think they?re going to teach anyone to broaden his or her ideas of acceptable bodies. If you want to know what feminist media criticism should make of this, perhaps it?s time to get over the idea that representation alone equals goodness. The whole tone of the campaign is condescending and prissy. ?Fat? women and women of color are lumped together in a class that exists outside the norm (as usual). They are put inside gigantic, matronly underwear to underscore their sexlessness. They?re given meaningless euphemisms ? ?curvy? ? instead of a chance to possess a female body that?s measured objectively in kilograms and centimeters rather than ideological values.
Besides, this kind of ?real woman? ad is nothing new. The ?natural look? was big in the 1960s and 70s; and small breasts were all the rage in the 1920s. These kinds of representations ? in which we are shown a carefully circumscribed and sanitized bunch of pseudo-deviants ? are the way liberal culture always pats itself on the back for being ?so open-minded? and ?so tolerant.? Now we can feel terribly enlightened for admitting that some women are ?curvy,? although we certainly wouldn?t want to just throw those curvy women into an ad with normal ones! Maybe we?ll just put them in an ad specifically for ?curvies,? so that nobody gets the wrong idea that curvy is normal. Every liberal democracy loves a ghetto.
So what?s the way out? Am I asking for ads with really fat chicks, septugenarians with saggy breasts and asses dimpled with cellulite? No. I mean, sure, if you want to make those ads I?ll think it?s cool - but I?m not under the illusion that they?ll solve the basic problem of women being told their bodies should meet an impossible ideal or not be seen.
What I want is a culture in which your body means nothing but itself ? a culture where fat people aren?t mocked, and people of color aren?t demonized. I want a culture where we don?t assign arbitrary values to particular kinds of bodies. There, I could buy clothing based on measurements alone and not on words whose mincing carefulness only serves to heighten the unspoken judgement that fatness equals badness.
I?m not saying that this alternate culture wouldn?t have concepts of beauty. There will always be people who feel plain, or who get extra attention because people find them hot. But the plain ones don?t have to be punished. And the pretty ones don?t have to rule our imaginations.
Comment by annalee 8/28/2005 @ 10:28 pm
Skinny is skinny, fat is fat. No matter what they put on these ads someone will complain about something. Remember this, we are all human, no one better than the other. Maybe you people should concentrate on more important things besides TV
Comment by John 8/29/2005 @ 3:13 am