Beauty ads of 'real women' are a bit revolting

BY MEGHAN DAUM
Meghan Daum is an essayist and novelist in Los Angeles. This is from the Los Angeles Times. James Klurfeld is off.

August 12, 2005

I realize that, as a woman who does not happen to be a supermodel, I'm supposed to appreciate and even feel empowered by Dove's "Real Women for Beauty" ad campaign.

You know the one. On billboards and bus stops across the country, six "real" women pose in white bras and panties, their fleshy thighs, generous hips and presumably surgically unaltered breasts on spirited display.

Apparently this is more than just an ad campaign; it's a political movement. "For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes," Dove's Web site explains. "You've told us it's time to change all that."

I don't remember telling Dove anything. But, now that Dove mentions it, I actually feel a little sick to my stomach.

Why? It could be that the lead product of this campaign is, ahem, cellulite firming cream. Dove is sounding the trumpets of body acceptance while selling woe-begotten "real women" a cure for their realness.

"Firming the thighs of a size-two supermodel is no challenge," reads the text on the Web site. "Real women have real bodies with real curves."

But that's not really what fazes me. Dove is hardly the first company to sell solutions by inventing problems. If anything, this "realness" aesthetic should seem middlebrow.

So why am I feeling so uneasy? Is it simply that we're now shocked by any woman in the media who isn't built like a silicone-enhanced greyhound? It's tempting to say the ads prove how shallow we have all become.

Here we are in 2005, in the same summer that the health manual "Our Bodies, Ourselves," the very touchstone of hairy-arm-pitted, bra-burning exuberance, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and women are clucking their tongues at models who don't meet the preternatural standards of Tyra Banks and Kate Moss. Has the cultural preoccupation with "narrow, stifling stereotypes" become so ingrained that we're repulsed by our own reflections?

Actually, I think not. What's shocking about these ads has more to do with a curious invasion of privacy than with neuroses surrounding jiggly flesh. Seeing these women blown up to dozens of times their actual size above the thoroughfares of American cities is a bit like seeing an enormous picture of one's own bedroom on display to anyone who drives by.

We love our bedrooms - partly because they're private spaces, sanctuaries for ourselves and the ones we love. The bed may be unmade, clothes may be strewn across the floor, but we love this space because the messiness reminds us we're at home.

Naked bodies - especially, it seems, those of women - work much the same way. Although the visual impact cannot be underestimated, there are hundreds of other sensory expressions - smells, textures, sounds - that simply cannot be represented in advertising. That is the reason we have professional models. They show us their bodies without invading our privacy or their own. An underwear model represents intimacy while at the same time protecting us from the rawness of actual intimacy. Her genius lies in her ability to be generic. And this is something Dove's "real women" just can't do.

That's why so many of us react not with a rallying, "You go, girls!" but with a string of panicked questions. "Who are they?" we ask. "Do I look like that? Should I not look like that? Do I look better than them? Do I look worse?"

The first question can be answered on Dove's Web site, which supplies profiles and journal entries of each of the amateur models. The other questions reveal an irony far greater than the fact that at the root of all this body acceptance lies a fear of cellulite. These women remind us how much we need professional models, not for their jutting bones and flawless skin but for the way they throw themselves in front of traffic so that we don't have to.

We may gasp, but I suspect what we're saying without realizing it is this: "Leave this work to the pros, girls. Real women have better things to do."

Media shmedia. Am I the ONLY one that understand the mere LOGIC of models having a similar body type? If you're the one MAKING the clothes to be advertised, how many sizes are you supposed to make and bring to a photo shoot? By having an industry standard, it makes things easier.
Sure, it's frustrating for all of us who aren't a 5'9 a cup size 2, but you know what? I'm not blaming the Media for me not being able to be a linebacker, either.

I like the Dove Ads. They're not a clothing manufacturer, their product is made for and fits everyone. So that's who their using. It's their choice. WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL? Seriously?

Maybe some ugly girls hide behind the media scapegoat because they don't like how they look. If it's Sally 5'9 A cup size 2, that get's all the love, then they can complain that it's the media. But as soon as girls with any other bodies get a little love, and they realize that they still don't have a chance in hell of gracing a magazine cover, they're just going to find another angle to bitch about.

No, No, you're not ugly. It's the rest of the world that's wrong.

I'm 5'1 and I'll never be a supermodel. I'm okay with that.

why is it LOGIC to have the models all be 5;9 and size 2 if the average american that you are SELLING your clohtes to is something like 5'5" and a size 10-12? why not have all of your models be THAT size if you want to talk about logic?

What is a "regular" sized woman?

in a news broadcast last night, i heard that the average american woman is a size 14. so these dove ads that feature women who are size 6 to size 12 are not even representing the average american women.

why is it LOGIC to have the models all be 5;9 and size 2 if the average american that you are SELLING your clohtes to is something like 5'5" and a size 10-12? why not have all of your models be THAT size if you want to talk about logic?

The average American is fat. That really shouldn't be celebrated.

Amen.

Amen.

this is not about celebrating fat, it is about celebrating a female form that is not bone thin.

i would not consider any of the women in those ads as obese. a tad overweight, but they look healthy to me. and that is the point: real, healthy women posing on billboards instead of emaciated stick women.

Beat me to it.