I came across this ad from dove and it took me by surprise. I have seen many dove commercials and ads before, but none of them have been quite like this one. At a quick glance everything looks fine and dandy, but if we read the image more closely we see that this borderlines racism. Let's start with the statement at the bottom of the ad, it reads: "Visibly more beautiful skin from the most unexpected of places - your shower." Dove is saying that their product will make your skin look better. That in itself is a perfectly reasonable statement; however, when we look at the models represented in this picture we get a different opinion on the text. Notice how there is one black model, one tan model, and one white model. We, as English speaking citizens, are taught to read from left to right, so if we take this picture of models and read it from left to right we go from black model to white model. Then we look at the skin pictures in the background and see that the "before" picture of skin is hanging above the black woman and the "after" picture is hanging above the white woman. If we take all this information into account, we can fairly assume that dove is basically saying that their product will lighten your skin to make you white and beautiful. This can be read as white skin is more beautiful than black skin. In reality, I think dove was trying to make it a politically correct ad and save their asses from any lawsuit by representing different skin types, but they ended up creating an ad that sends a direct statement against any skin type that isn't white.Sunday, October 16, 2011
Dove's racist ad
I came across this ad from dove and it took me by surprise. I have seen many dove commercials and ads before, but none of them have been quite like this one. At a quick glance everything looks fine and dandy, but if we read the image more closely we see that this borderlines racism. Let's start with the statement at the bottom of the ad, it reads: "Visibly more beautiful skin from the most unexpected of places - your shower." Dove is saying that their product will make your skin look better. That in itself is a perfectly reasonable statement; however, when we look at the models represented in this picture we get a different opinion on the text. Notice how there is one black model, one tan model, and one white model. We, as English speaking citizens, are taught to read from left to right, so if we take this picture of models and read it from left to right we go from black model to white model. Then we look at the skin pictures in the background and see that the "before" picture of skin is hanging above the black woman and the "after" picture is hanging above the white woman. If we take all this information into account, we can fairly assume that dove is basically saying that their product will lighten your skin to make you white and beautiful. This can be read as white skin is more beautiful than black skin. In reality, I think dove was trying to make it a politically correct ad and save their asses from any lawsuit by representing different skin types, but they ended up creating an ad that sends a direct statement against any skin type that isn't white.
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The first time I saw this that's the first thing I noticed: Black skin on the left, going to white skin on the right and the saying "before and after."
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good example of reading the text. It shows, although I'm guessing unintentionally, the way our culture thinks white skin is "superior" to other skin colors, the idea that white is superior to other races.
I think it's interesting that the white woman is on the right, and not in them middle, per say. It clearly doesn't look random that the order of skin tone goes from dark to light, left to right. I wish a company like Dove, that should be promoting the beauty of all women, would take more thought and consideration into their ads.
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