[Two years ago], as part of its much lauded "Dove Campaign for Real Beauty," Unilever released "Onslaught," a video (above) examining disturbing images of women in beauty-industry advertising. The video ends with this admonition to parents: "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does." It's a powerful video with a disturbing collection of images. The situation of our daughters -- and, by the way, our sons -- seems both overwhelming and diabolical. Read the comments about the film on the Dove website discussion board, and you can feel the love and gratitude that viewers, particularly mothers, feel toward Dove for this film. Skimming the first ten comments, one finds these reviews and remarks:
"This is a POWERFUL little film for sure"; " I love the message behind the Dove movies/ads"; "I applaud Dove once again"; " I think this film is wonderful!"; "I applaud Dove for launching their campaign of what beauty really is"; "Kudos to DOVE for taking a stand"; "My reaction to 'Onslaught' is that I want to cry"; and "Thank you for launching this campaign as it is way overdue."
There's a problem that is easily lost when one contemplates the impressive production that "Onslaught" represents and the possibility that at least some corporations just may be our friends -- the kind of friend who cares about our kids and who we can trust to help teach our children the valuable messages about what "real beauty" is and about the traps and dangers of our shared environment. No, there are actually several problems. To begin with, although Dove claims to "provide[] a refreshingly real alternative for women who recognise that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes," even the Dove models seem to fit quite comfortably within a slightly expanded perimeter of conventional conceptions of beauty. The young girls, for instance, who represent "our children" in the film "Onslaught" are exceptionally attractive children even by commercially influenced cultural standards. The same is true for the models in the Real Beauty campaign -- yes, there is variety, but the variety is measured in small deviations around an average that is itself only a tiny enlargement of the single standard of beauty given to us by those other beauty products. In other words, Dove's claim that beauty comes in "all shapes and sizes" seems to mean that beauty comes in "a few more shapes and sizes -- particularly if the women are laughing and playing together in their underwear."
What is the implicit message to those girls and women who don't measure up to even the "lowered" Dove standard? And what is the message of these particular images -- where groups of young women reveal their "inner beauty" by standing in their underwear touching, rubbing, and giggling? There may be another even more troubling feature of these ads. Telling parents to "talk to [their] daughters before the beauty industry does," is equivalent to telling parents to teach their children how to float in thin air before gravity gets to them. The beauty industry "talks" to our children either directly or indirectly at virtually every waking moment, and, I suspect, during many of our children's dreams. If you don't agree, just watch "Onslaught" again. Those images set the beauty standard not simply for the young girls who strive to slim down and measure up, but also of their friends and families and society at large. Those cultural expectations and pressures enmesh our children even when the ads and posters are briefly out of sight. Parents fortunate enough to have the time, energy, and resources to "talk to their children" meaningfully and consistently about "real beauty" might be able to hold their children up against the force of gravity for a brief spell. Eventually, though, the "onslaught" of commercial images and messages will take its toll. After all, the barrage is incessant, multidirectional, and credible. Existing beauty standards matter in the lives of those who do, and those who do not, meet them. A parent's words are among the least frequent, least credible, and least relevant words that their adolescent children will hear, particularly when it comes to questions of beauty and social acceptance among their peers. In fact, by even focusing on the problematic standards of beauty that their children face, parents risk underscoring and strengthening the power of that standard. The "Onslaught" video may itself have that effect by bringing into relief the current unforgiving and unrealizable standard of beauty that now dominates our culture. Thus, while the "Onslaught" video urges parents to "talk to your daughters," it probably should add "but don't show them this video" which all-too-clearly highlights the undernourished and oversexualized prototypes of "beauty." A parent's task is made that much more difficult by the fact that commercial marketing is not simply teaching our children about the importance and meaning of "beauty," it is also pitting parents and kids against one another -- from encouraging children to "nag" for more stuff to undermining the credibility and authority of parental limits or advice. (For fascinating and detailed accounts of the consumerist kidnapping, you can read Susan Linn's Consuming Kids or Juliet Schor's Born to Buy -- if time permits, both are worth reading. For an excellent website covering these topics, visit the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.) Do not misunderstand: I accept that some parents may be able to make some difference -- or, as a parent of three, I hope that is true. My point is that parents are competing against a force that is far larger than any one of us, a force not of our choosing. As Cornel West and Sylvia Ann Hewlett have written:
It's a powerful video with a disturbing collection of images. The situation of our daughters -- and, by the way, our sons -- seems both overwhelming and diabolical. Read the comments about the film on the Dove website discussion board, and you can feel the love and gratitude that viewers, particularly mothers, feel toward Dove for this film. Skimming the first ten comments, one finds these reviews and remarks:
