With great hype and endless billboards, Dove has mounted a "Campaign for Beauty" to announce the release of its new "firming" cream. The ads feature underwear clad models with bodies that don't fit the current stick-thin supermodel style. While all of the women have conventionally attractive faces, there is more dermatology on display than air-brushing fashion photogs usually allow. The fetching femmes feature enough wrinkles, sun spots, facial bumps, tattoos, and moley moles to keep a skin clinic busy for at least half an afternoon.
Notably, a dark vertical line creases one model's abdomen. Known medically as linea nigra, it is traditionally seen after pregnancy, due to melanin pigment stimulated by high levels of estrogen hormone. While I doubt that Dove's "firming" cream will fade this discoloration, time and sun protection should restore the normal tone. |
Though the campaign purports an admirable goal, addressing the pressures on women to conform to idealized standards, it seems the true "campaign" is to market a product. What is "firm" skin? If this salve is supposed to correct the terrors of cellulite, wouldn't they just say that and accept a write-in vote for the Nobel prize? And if women can be happy as is, why do they need to be "firmed?"
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