| Blogs > Skipper_too > My Blog |
|
Racist? This advertisement has recently drawn attention. Do you consider this advertisement racist? Please share your rational for your judgement.  |
|||
|
What, they all have white towels????
| ||
|
No. At first glance, looking at the before & after (just the words) and then the pictures, the models go from dark-skinned to light - perhaps throwing in an unintentional subtleness. Is that why it's drawing attention? The blocks behind the models show a close-up of what I would guess to be cracked and dry skin to... soft. If anything, the advertising agency didn't look at the layout from all angles.
| ||
5/24/2011 2:50 pm |
Hi Skippy: Subliminal message is there.  Use Dove and within a week you can change from an overweight black woman with kinky hair and cracked skin (probably an uneducated cleaning lady or illegal immigrant) to a soft skinned, shiny and straight haired, thin all-American blonde yuppie (cheerleader, super-model, PhD, rich, drives a BMW).
| ||
|
An unfortunate placement of the models.... sighhhhh I didn't even notice the skin background behind them.... just the words before & after.
| ||
5/24/2011 11:15 pm |
Hi Skippy: Subliminal message is there. Use Dove and within a week you can change from an overweight black woman with kinky hair and cracked skin (probably an uneducated cleaning lady or illegal immigrant) to a soft skinned, shiny and straight haired, thin all-American blonde yuppie (cheerleader, super-model, PhD, rich, drives a BMW).
| ||
5/24/2011 11:34 pm |
There are a number of subliminals in this ad as there are in every print ad. However I think you are referring to the Meta message of the progression of positives from left to right; black to white. First of all the black model on the left will automatically create visual tension as the right side is physically the most comfortable direction for people to look. English conditions us to move our eyes from left to right so the models positions take advantage of this. There is also the covert political message of “Blacks on the left” and “whites on the right.” If you look at the middle model that appears Latino you will see that she is divided by the vertical lines of the “skin patches.” Breast positioning is a sexual attracting that is as appealing to women as men. You will see the white woman on the right has the highest breast and nipple line for visual appeal. There is a sight line formed by the breast and nipple lines of all three women with the white women highest on the nipple order. There are numerous other clues if one looks at and understands the hand positions. The skin patches and hair contain a number of subliminals as a typical print ad will have five layers of visual overlays. I am sure that given time I could discern subliminals in the towels and hair as well as in the skin of the three models also. I think this ad had multiple purposes, amongst them is to reinforce racial stereotypes and is therefore covertly racist.
| ||
5/25/2011 7:52 am |
Not at all...Dove is a wonderful company and has done a lot to help women of all races, creeds, size, age and colour... I guess if you look hard eneogh at anything..and lift every rock, move every log...eventually you'll find a slug..doing his slug thing. Ricky..spinning out of control again..sometimes things are just what they say they are... 
| ||
5/25/2011 3:07 pm |
Hi Skippy: How can this be simply an oversight by everyone at Dove and their advertising agency? The black woman is standing directly under the 'before' sign and behind her is the cracked skin photo. If the blonde wasn't standing under the 'after' sign, the ad wouldn't be so bad, but this way they might just as well wrap a black towel around the black woman and have an arrow pointing to the 'before' sign.
| ||
5/25/2011 3:55 pm |
Not at all...Dove is a wonderful company and has done a lot to help women of all races, creeds, size, age and colour... I guess if you look hard eneogh at anything..and lift every rock, move every log...eventually you'll find a slug..doing his slug thing. Ricky..spinning out of control again..sometimes things are just what they say they are...
|
×
×