See, my problem with the sketches ad in particular is that it is, very explicitly, reinforcing stereotypes of beauty. The message is "your appearance is your worth as a person", with a side helping of "but you're closer to the accepted beauty standard than you think" to make it seem empowering. One of the women in the ad says that feeling beautiful affects how you treat your kids and what jobs you apply for, and it's vital to your happiness. Now, maybe if you use a definition of "beauty" that actually means "self-esteem", that's true, but that's not what's going on here; it's quite the opposite. Real empowerment, which you will never ever see in an ad for soap, would be getting self-esteem from something other than how you look. It isn't "I'm more beautiful than I thought", it's "I'm valuable for more than my looks".
It's nice to see the variety of bodies in some of the Real Beauty ads. I'll give them that. But this one hit me completely wrong.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2013-04-20 02:31 am (UTC)It's nice to see the variety of bodies in some of the Real Beauty ads. I'll give them that. But this one hit me completely wrong.