The Dove Evolution commercial depicts
The commercial depicts a fair Caucasian blonde woman, in her twenties, given a “general overhaul” through make-up, her eyes given highlight through eyeliner and eye shadow, her hair made frizzier to give her features more movement, her lips given more color through lipstick. She was then further enhanced through computer graphic editing. She was made skinnier with her neck extended, her cheek bones better emphasized, her eyes widened and her face made slimmer. As a result, the woman appears to be a different person. Then a statement after the commercial, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.
Take part in the dove real beauty workshop for girls. ” This commercial gives us the real picture of how the world has defined beauty and how the world has given us the picture of beauty. Beauty should be in the eyes of the beholder but in this commercial, a beautiful woman is enhanced with make-up and computer and dove is trying to correct that through their claim that our (the world’s) perception of beauty is distorted. This is illustrated by the changes in the woman. Our stereotypes may be that a woman must be skinny, she must be white or fair, she must have a straight hair, and her skin must be smooth and so on.
But on top of all these “distortions”, any regular female’s problem is their weight. This is one of the reasons why adolescents especially go into a state of mental disorders as anorexia nervosa. In this disorder, a person will continuously desire to lose weight even though she is already below her normal weight level. She forces out the food she has taken in through vomiting. As a result, she does not gain any weight and has just satisfied the hunger. Most of the anorexics extend to measuring through graduated cylinders the amount of food intake and should match the output or amount of their vomitus.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders suggests that those in late adolescence and early adulthood meet the full criteria for anorexia nervosa at a rate of 0. 5% to 1. 0% (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). These are the girls in their 15-19 years of age. Further statistics says that that between 40-60% of high school girls diet, 30-40% of junior high girls are concerned about their weight and 40% of 9-year-old girls have dieted (Eating disorders coalition, 2006). This statistics is the particular target of this commercial.
Most people suffer in their health, give up the pleasures of eating in parties and do not enjoy mostly their young age because of the pressures of society. The society dictates what is normal and what is not and young people are very keen to this. In adolescence, the concern of people is their sense of identity. It is their body image and how they are perceived by the public. One’s aim is to belong and not to be criticized for being different. Otherwise if one is different, one will not have the benefit and the pleasure of having the peers she would have.
Sadly, most of the adolescents today, as this has been a pressing problem in the past, have not changed. Something must be really wrong with the system that the world is having. There have been a lot of advertisements already about beauty products but this dove commercial is the only one brave enough to ridicule one’s perception. One’s beauty is one’s sense of self. One’s beauty is one’s self-esteem. And the undertow of the dove commercial is to cure that problem with self-esteem instead of focusing on the outside or the physical beauty. One of the comments of an anonymous audience in the website.
