Dove – Real Beauty
Advertisement Analysis
There is an enormous amount of pressure on women to look a certain way, thanks in no small part to the way marketing and advertising has portrayed them over the years. As a result, many women have an unjustifiably low opinion of the way they look. Dove attempted to highlight this issue in this Emotional video cam- paign, showing women the stark difference between two drawings of themselves – one they created and another drawn by a forensic artist specially trained to produce realistic portraits of people.
Body shaming has been a major issue in the society and is being recognized throughout the world as an act of offense. This advertisement, instead, brought out how our perceptions of ourselves are infected with ‘a wish to be’. Given the privi- leges of a mirror, we are yet unable to see ourselves the way we are, let alone un- derstanding what inner beauty is. The process starts from ‘presence’, a stage at which we admit the existence of different descriptives of ourselves. Then comes the ‘reflection’ where we must try and differentiate between the two visuals. And finally ‘acceptance’, by which I do not mean ‘to settle for’ but in fact ‘embrace and cherish’ the way you have been painted.
It is okay to have a wishful perception of oneself but it is necessary to know about the real you. I too, walked through this process when I began to create my self portrait. Having had a set hand in sketching portraits, I was very confident from the very first stroke. But as I began to advance, 15 of my self portrait sketch- es were wishful depictions. Just before I was about to give up on it, I confronted the real problem. I realized how while studying the length of my nose I overlooked the bump on it. Give it a try and you will see how you have been painted one of a kind.
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