Why the Dove Commercials are a Crock of Shit
I was perusing some of the missed entries on Livejournal’s Feminist community, when I found this little beauty:
Is Dove trying to do something they think is good? Maybe. But they’re still selling a product. And since they’re owned by a multinational conglomerate that also pushes body oppression, misogyny and violence against women via their other advertising campaigns, I can’t take seriously any effort they make to “support women.” It’s kind of like how Weight Watchers (I think?) sponsored one of the previous BlogHer conferences: just because they support women in one way doesn’t make their previous behavior excusable.
Via Feminist.
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The criticisms of my students would serve as a good warning to visitors of Seeworthy: she talks too fast, she's too hard on us, she assigns too much work, and you have to be a dyke to get a good grade.
In other words, I'm a big, fat, queer, feminist meanie, and I am totally out to get you. Graaagh!
Yeah, WW sponsored the 06 BlogHer.
Thanks for posting this as well. I’ve been impressed with Dove’s commercials when taken on their own, in an isolation chamber, away from the actual Dove products. They’re *great*. They really are.
But then I saw another Dove commercial this afternoon telling women that their hair was too dry, and they needed their product to have smooth hair. So, yeah. Zero sum I think - not to mention that Unilever sells Axe body spray/crap and Slim-Fast.
(as noted in the video, that is.
I’ve ripped down AXE advertisement posters at my campus. Paid promoters even posted them in the classrooms. I was thinking of buying those stickers that you can put on posters that say “This advertisement is sexist,” but, why even bother when you can tear the thing up when and where you see it with no guilt whatsoever?
I wonder if the little girl in the Dove ad used UniLever’s “Fair and Lovely” cream, which enhances a woman’s beauty by making her more white (caucasian).
Why is it self-acceptance is only foisted on and acceptable for American woman?
Yeah, there has been a bit of talk about this on Shakesville and Hoyden lately. I had never put it all together, though obviously Dove’s commercials never absolved them. I am not sure which I hate more, Axe commercials or Pond’s skin whitening commercials. I think when there are corporate interests, you have got to be skeptical. If it benefits them to coopt, they coopt. This proves that feel like they can have their oppression both ways.
I fucking love whoever made that video. They should send it to Unilever along with a petition from women who say they are not going to buy any dove products until unilever thinks of a new campaign for AXE.
Wow that is interesting! Thank you for posting that!
Unilever’s real cash cow is the Suave line of products, which are often times the only affordable hygiene products available to poor people. Whether or not people boycott Dove, the broadest base of Unilever’s customers can’t afford to boycott Suave because there’s really nowhere to go. Suave products are full of parabens, ammonium laurel sulfate and ammonium laureth sulfate, three chemical compounds that have been tentatively linked to breast cancer. Oh yeah, and they don’t use pthalate free packaging. Their Axe campaigns are half as disgusting as the chemical class warfare they’re waging. So, I’d like to tell Unilever to get stuffed, but I’m too poor to afford to go elsewhere.
Hmmm, Godless Heathen, that’s a good point.
I wonder if it would be less expensive for you to go shampoo less?
http://www.naturemoms.com/no-shampoo-alternative.html
Perhaps you can use the money you would save not buying shampoo and spend it on deoderant that is not suave, and then you can help tell unilever to get stuffed?
And I’ve noticed that V05 products are pretty inexpensive as well.
If any one is interested in not padding Unilevers pocket, here is their website with a list of their brands. Its pretty extensive.
http://www.unilever.com/ourbrands/
it includes sunsilk, close-up toothpaste, country crock and knorr soups, hellman’s mayo and many others.
Alberto VO5 is really cheap; however, it contains formaldehyde. So not really a great alternative there.
I think Godless Heathen really hit a nail on the head with the class comment; it’s something that goes overlooked far too often in discussions of boycotting products with shady backgrounds - who can *afford* to boycott? There isn’t really (as far as I know) a similarly low-cost hair product that doesn’t have something really wrong with it.
I don’t have a solution, but I wish there was one. I wish there was a way that those who could afford it could donate ethically sound products (or funds to buy such products) so they would either be free or much lower-cost for poor people who want to shop for such products. But in the meantime, I think the solution probably isn’t to tell folks just to not shampoo their hair (although I did check out the link and it looks like an interesting alternative).
I think we do need to take care not to automatically equate people who *have to* buy products from Unilever with people who *choose to, but don’t have to* buy such products. If someone can afford to buy a different product but *really* likes Sunsilk so they’ll overlook Unliver’s products, that is far more problematic to me than someone who is aware of the problems with the corporation, but buys from them because that’s what’s affordable.
Blah. I dunno. Good thoughts, all.