The words appear
slowly, against the familiar powder-blue shape of the bird in flight --
the Dove soap symbol -- like soothing, watery poetry:
For too long beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling sterotypes [sic]. You've told us it's time to change all that. We agree. Because we believe real beauty comes In many shapes, sizes and ages. It is why we started the Campaign for Real Beauty. And why we hope you'll take part.
This is the lilting intro to the Web site
that Dove has dedicated to its "Real Beauty" advertising campaign, for
which it has picked six women who are not professional models -- each
beautiful, but broader than Bundchen, heftier than an Olsen twin -- to
model in bras and panties.
The campaign is
massive; these six broads are currently featured in national television
and magazine ads, as well as on billboards and the sides of buses in
urban markets like Boston, Chicago, Washington, Dallas, Los Angeles,
Miami, New York and San Francisco. And they've made quite an impact.
Apparently, this public display of non-liposuctioned thighs is so
jaw-droppingly revelatory that recent weeks have seen the Real Beauty
models booked on everything from "The Today Show" to "The View" to CNN.
All the hoopla is precisely what Dove expected. According to a
press release, Dove wants "to make women feel more beautiful every day
by challenging today's stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women
to take great care of themselves." The use of "real women" (don't think
too hard about the Kate Mosses of the world losing their status as
biological females here) "of various ages, shapes and sizes" is
designed "to provoke discussion and debate about today's typecast
beauty images."
It's a great idea --- a worthy follow-up to Dove's 2004 campaign,
which featured women with lined faces, silver hair and heavy freckles,
and asked questions like, "Wrinkled? Or Wonderful?" and also got a lot
of attention, including a shout-out on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show."
As Stacy Nadeau, one of the Real Beauty models and a full-time student from Ann Arbor, Mich., says
on the campaign Web site, "I have always been a curvier girl and always
will be. I am proud of my body and think all women should be proud of
theirs too. This is my time to encourage and help women feel great
about themselves, no matter what they weigh or look like. Women have
surrendered to diets and insane eating habits to live up to social
stereotypes for too long. It's time that all women felt beautiful in
their own skin."
But let's hope that skin doesn't have any cellulite. Because no one wants to look at a cottage-cheesy ass.
That's right. The
one little wrinkle -- so to speak -- in this you-go-grrl
stick-it-to-the-media-man empowerment campaign is that the set of Dove
products that these real women are shilling for is cellulite firming cream.
Specifically, Dove's new "Intensive Firming Cream," described as "a
highly effective blend of glycerin, plus seaweed extract and elastin
peptides known for their skin-firming properties." It's supposed to "go
to work on problem areas to help skin feel firmer and reduce the
appearance of cellulite in two weeks." There are also the Intensive
Firming Lotion and the Firming Moisturizing Body Wash, which do pretty
much the same thing.
But as long as
you're patting yourself on the back for hiring real-life models with
imperfect bodies, thereby "challenging today's stereotypical view of
beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves," why ask
those models to flog a cream that has zero health value and is just an
expensive and temporary Band-Aid for a "problem" that the media has
told us we have with our bodies. Incidentally, cellulite isn't even a
result of being overweight!
It's the result of cellular changes in the skin. Skinny people have
cellulite. Old people have cellulite. Young people have cellulite. Gwyneth Paltrow has cellulite. All God's children have cellulite.
Why not run an ad that proclaims, "Cellulite: Uniquely MINE!"
Or, more realistically, why aren't these women selling shampoo? Or soap? Or moisturizer?
It's a great
gimmick -- one that few of us can take issue with. But just like Dove's
"love your ass but not the fat on it" campaign, much of this stuff
prompts grim questions about whether it's even possible to break the
feel-bad cycle of the beauty industry. Blanchett, after all, recently
signed on as spokeswoman for SK-II line of cosmetics. And while it's
all well and good to tell 8-year-old girls that real beauty is about
trust, it's sort of funny to think about doing it while selling them
minty lip shine or fruit-scented "My Way Styling Gel" for eight bucks a
pop.
Let them be. After
all, they have decades ahead of them in which to worry about
eradicating the cellulite from their really beautiful curves.
For too long 
