Wow.

[bladespark]

Okay, the "skinny is beautiful" media thing has officially jumped the shark. Gone beyond the pale. Passed the point of no return. Because apparently this woman is supposed to disgust you. Go, clicky, look. Then come back and read. (Er, clicky leads to gal clad only in strategically placed rose petals, may not be SFW in some workplaces.)

I am more or less straight, when Aidan's not doing the talking. (Probably a Kinsey 1, and a 2-3 when Aidan and/or Yin are around.) But that first girl especially is hot. Holy CRAP is she hot. She's supposed to be disgustingly overweight? What? She is drool-worthy even for people who do not have a BWW fetish. She has hips! She is gorgeous!

Media people have lost touch with reality. They spend so much time in their little marketing world, surrounded by yes men and crazy people who think a size 6 is overweight, that they no longer have any idea what real people like. (Heavens! A size six! I've been one, it was during my stick period, when I was too stressed to eat, and when I did eat I was too broke to have anything other than Ramen. I was too thin!)

Here's a clue, media people. Real people like real people. People who look like themselves. People who are beautiful in many ways, but who do not need to be airbrushed to be so! People who are thin and fat and in between, who are short and tall and dark and blonde and pierced and not, and everything. We may be momentarily attracted to a perfectly symmetrical face on a magazine cover, but it does not make any real impact on our minds. You want to capture our attention, well... you need something real. And that's the problem, isn't it? You don't know what real is. You try to manufacture reality, you try to be hip and cool and down with us homies, and you fail utterly, because you are not real.

Screw the ad campaign and the diet youghurt, I will take that lady with the rose petals right there. Mrow! (Hush, Aidan.) She looks pretty real to me. And if my not eating the diet yougurt means I look like her, I am not going to mind one bit! (Although I won't, I put my fat on in funny places...)

Comments

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I rather approve of the Dove campaign. Trying to sell beauty products on the idea that they enhance the naturally beautiful you, or whatever, is better than trying to sell them by saying that you look like a horrible ugly slob without them!

I still don't buy any of the stuff though. Except soap. I have bought Dove soap. Clean is important. And I think maybe hand lotion once...

[silveradept]

This is true - although the campaign is still telling people, semi-subtly, that while they're great by themselves, they'd still be that much better if they purchased the product being marketed to them. Which, if you're really content with the you that you are, and have no need of utilizing things that hide or change you, wouldn't work at all. So it's good that they're saying "People are beautiful by themselves", they need it to have a full stop there, rather than continuing on "but our products will make them even better."

[2dlife.livejournal.com]

I think you're misinterpreting the Dove advertisements. The message isn't that "you are beautiful as is", it's "you don't have to look traditionally beautiful to be beautiful". You do still have to wash your hair and shower but there's beauty in not having razor-thin cheekbones. Plus, I don't think Dove's advertising actually asks you to buy Dove products. It's a positive-feeling ad. That is you get a message that makes you feel good about yourself and you associate that feeling with Dove so when you go shopping, you get to the shampoo aisle and you think "hey, Dove is a good company, I should get Dove."

Flattery will get you everywhere.

[silveradept]

Ah. That's a much more positive message than I want to attribute to a large beauty-products corporation, or a more insidious one. But yeah, I can see how that's a valid way of looking at it. Less on the makeup companies, more just about keeping the natural beauty that is you clean and well-kept.