The Media’s Idea of Beauty

Dove Ad

(The Olay ad would be here but I pulled it out of a magazine)

Dove’s “Real Beauty” ad campaign used to promote Dove products while redefining what society views as beautiful, has gained lots of popularity since the first ad appeared in September, 2004. The Dove ads are unique and unlike those of any of their competitors. For example, Olay brand, which can be seen as a direct competitor of Dove, advertises their products using only thin, tall, young models that are typically airbrushed to give off the illusion they have flawless skin, while Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign uses women of all ages, shapes, and sizes and never airbrushes or use professional models.

I chose to compare an Olay ad which was created in an effort to promote their body wash with spa exfoliating ribbons and a Dove ad that was created to promote Dove’s firming cream. The Olay ad depicts a young thin woman with long shiny hair under water surrounded by blue ribbon and wearing a very thin, nearly transparent cool blue fabric around both the lower and upper half of her body with the tag line stating, “Discover the velvety smooth skin that lies beneath,” some copy, and Olay’s slogan, “Love the skin your in..” The Dove ad depicts a line with eight different “Full figured” woman against a plain white background wearing nothing but white cotton bras and white cotton underwear with the tag line “New Dove firming. As tested on real curves.”

I selected the Dove campaign primarily because I love the “real women are beautiful” message it communicates, and I find it refreshing that it give its viewers a more realistic view of beauty. Also, being an advertising major I’ve learned that one of advertisings main goals is to promise something to the consumer that can be achieved through the use of a product. So I realize and respect the fact that Dove took a chance with this campaign because the decision to use women in their advertisements that don’t fit society’s perception of beautiful definitely ran the risk of having the consumer believe that they would not benefit from purchasing the product. Many brands believe it is necessary to advertise with “beautiful women” to give the consumer a false notion or promise that if they use their product they too can look as beautiful as the woman in the ad, and because of this reason, I chose to compare it to an Olay ad which seems a lot more familiar and traditional.

Personal: When I first saw the Dove’s “Real beauty” advertisement for firming cream I thought it was so great that Dove was advertising beauty products with women who give a much more realistic view of beauty rather than the unrealistic and almost unattainable image of women who are beautiful, but so rarely exist. While, I don’t think there is anything wrong with the Olay advertisement for Body wash I think the idea behind the ad is redundant, uncreative, and boring. And I realize the appearance of an ad is important because people would rather view things that are visually pleasing than things that are not, but it is important to have a level of honesty in advertisements because as early advertising C.E.O of D.D.B William Bernbach stated, “The most powerful element of advertising is the truth.” Consumers are not stupid and just because they see a beautiful woman in an advertisement for a beauty product does not mean they believe that if they buy the product they will reach a level of beauty similar to the model shown.

Historical: In the late 19th century and early 20th century women who where heavier and full figured where the ones typically viewed as beautiful. Being heavier was a sign of wealth and superiority. When I look at the Dove ad I see it as a way of bringing society back to a time when having a bigger chest, hips, and butt was what really made a women a women not what we commonly view it as today, young girl with a 12 –year-old boy body and breast implants. The history behind the creation of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign was the idea to change the status quo and include the following initiatives:
• Advertising that inspires women and society to think differently about what is defined as beautiful
• Self-esteem workshops with young girls in schools to help them foster a healthy relationship with and confidence in their bodies and their looks
• Establishment of the Program for Aesthetics and Well-Being at Harvard University, through a grant from Dove, which will continue to examine the way we think and talk about beauty in popular culture and the effect that this has on women’s well-being
• Creation of a global touring photography exhibit, Beyond Compare, Women Photographers on
Beauty, showcasing diverse images of female beauty from 67 female photographers, and demonstrating that beauty is about much more than stereotypes

When taking a historical look at the Olay body wash ad I realize that the model swimming more so looks as though she is floating and give of the impression that she has special powers and resembles what may have been portrayed as a goddess in Greek mythology. Perhaps the ad also plays off the idea that if you use Olay’s body wash it will make you look and feel like a goddess.
Technical: Both advertisement photographs seem to have been done using three-point lighting, and for the Olay ad, in addition to the three-point lighting, it also looks like a background light was used as well as a hair light which can be seen on the ends of the models hair. The key-light in the Olay ad comes in from the upper right and the diffused light is on the left and creates slow fall-off which is slightly visible on the models face, arms, stomach, and her inner and outer thighs. Moreover, the ad contains high-key lighting which is obvious due to the cool lighting and the photographs blue color.
The photograph must have been taken using a green screen or some sort of special background that gives the illusion the model is swimming or floating. I say this because if this were actually the case there would be a cast shadow just below her due to the key light shooting in from the upper right side.
There are 2 different types of typography used in the Olay ad. The first typography is the one that is used for the Olay logo and only appears in the ad once and simply says Olay. I’m not sure what type of font it is, but I do know it doesn’t have serifs, it’s a mono font, and it is fairly large. However, the second font type does have serifs and is used for the tag line, headline, product name, and the brands slogan in bold, non-bold, and in various sizes.
The Olay ad makes the model appear to be under the sea rapped in blue ribbons that look like seaweed. The waters denotation is water, its connotation would be things like silkiness and smoothness. The model swimming under the sea is a signifier and it signifies that using Olay’s body wash with micro beads makes your body as soft and smooth as if you where swimming in a pool of water. Furthermore, the fact that she is beneath the water, sea, earth etc. is also a signifier and signifies the wonderfully soft skin that lies beneath your dry dead skin which tends to surface your body, and that it can be removed by exfoliating with Olay’s body wash. It also plays off the tag line. The blue ribbons that resemble seaweed surrounding the model are also signifiers and signify the seaweed extract that Olay’s body wash contains and the string of exfoliating micro beads that Olay claims surrounds and exfoliates your entire body.
Dove’s ad has high key lighting and the photographer probably used three-pint lighting, However, the diffused light is helping to create such slow fall-off that I can’t tell which side the key light is coming from and which side the diffused light is coming from. There is no cast shadows but there is attached shadows which is what give the women their more defined features. There are two different typographies used in this ad not including the typography used on the dove products. The first type which is used for the tagline is a mono font that is quite simple and does not include serifs. While I’m almost certain it’s not Helvetica it does resemble it. The second font type is hard to see but also appears to be a mono font without serifs and it is usually the font type used for the Dove slogan in all the Dove ads. The eight larger women are signifiers which signifies that everyone should be comfortable with who they are because you don’t need to be young, thin, and tall to be beautiful like the Olay ad depicts.

Ethical, Cultural: As far as the ethical aspect of both these advertisements, both the Dove and Olay ad’s do not appear to me as being unethical according to what is typically accepted by me, the American culture, and regions of Europe etc. However, when comparing these ads to what is accepted by Muslims, Jews, Roman Catholics etc. in certain areas of the world, many will argue that the women in these ads are nearly nude with only two thin pieces of fabric covering their private areas and might agree that women should not be shown revealing so much skin because it is disrespectful to them and God.
Furthermore, many might view the Olay ad as being unethical because it gives consumers a false idea of how effective its product really is and gives off the impression that you must be young, thin, and beautiful to be as comfortable with your soft skin as the women in the advertisement.
Critical: After doing some research to help me better analyze both the Dove and Olay ad I found that while I believe the Dove ad creates a much more powerful message and relates better with their consumers than the Olay ad, some believe it to be controversial. According to the CBS2Chicago website film, Critic Richard Roeper says he believes the Dove ads to be “a little unsettling (cbs2chicago).” And those on the CBS 2 Morning Team also voiced their opinions. While their comments are not posted on the CBS2Chiscago website anymore I found a few of them on Adland like Bill Zweckers argument, “In this day and age, when we are facing a huge obesity problem in this country, we don’t need to encourage anyone — women or men — to think it’s okay to be out of shape.” While another stated,
“I get that it’s all relative, but that’s all the more reason why they shouldn’t be on a billboard. See, ads should be about the beautiful people. They should include the unrealistic, the ideal or the unattainable look for which so many people strive. That’s why models make so much money. They are freaks — human anomalies — who need to be paid to get photographed so we can gawk at them. I see “real people” all the time. I don’t need “real people” to sell me things. I’m a “real person” and I don’t want to see me on the side of a bus — and trust me, in my underwear neither do you. (And speaking of underwear, what’s with the lingerie these women are wearing? It’s like Sears catalog, circa 1983.) (adland).”
The reason several people find the Dove campaign to be unpleasing may be that society is so used to seeing one type of beauty, that which the media has shaped us into identifying as beauty, and after consistently seeing young women with a size zero waist we have become numb and now don’t realize that super thin woman with flawless skin is rare, unrealistic, and convincing woman to strive for unhealthy weight goals which may be why so many don’t even give ads like Olay’s a second look.

CNN vs. Al Jazeera

Picture by CNNPicture by Al Jazeera

The first image appears on the CNN website next to the lead “Turkish riot police attacked hundreds of workers with clubs, tear gas and water cannons to prevent them taking part in a May Day march in Istanbul that was banned by the government.”

Both stories explained that the Turkish police used force to stop a May Day march in Istanbul that had been banned since the 70’s . However, after reading both stories the CNN story seemed framed to make the police look like “the other” and the picture they used only enforces that. In the first picture the police have on gas masks and while I know this is for their safety it makes them look like non-human creatures and the way the image shows them holding the rioter makes them look scary and evil.

In the second picture, the police are shown holding up their shields and attempting to protect themselves. This image makes the police look less evil and scary. In fact, it makes the rioters look like they are “the other” and the police as so much less powerful than the picture shown by CNN. In the image used by Al Jareeza the police appear to be handling the situation as peacefully as possible and attempting to do their best to prevent these unknown “others” from harming civilians.

The images used by each news source definitely fits the framing in each story. And after reading both stories it is obvious each news source undoubtedly has their own bias they can’t seem to overcome.

That’s questionable #10

I think it’s questionable that the “Other” has a certain look or characteristic that makes it visually obvious that a person is the bad guy or “the other” I think movies can be narrated in a way where the viewer can tell who the director wanted the other to be just based on the story line and the way a movie is made. That’s why I chose the movie “Blow” for my example because it is not straight forward and obvious who the director wants “the other” to be, it is done subtly.

“The Other”

Personal:

I chose the movie “Blow” because it’s a great movie and I like the way it depicts the life of cocaine-trafficking pioneer George Jung. The film illustrates the life of a drug trafficker as lively, exciting, and interesting. Watching “Blow” sort of makes you wish you lived during the cocaine-trafficking prime of the 70’s and early 80’s and that it was your brilliant idea to make large amounts of money by smuggling cocaine into the U.S. and making the 70’s known in American history for its massive amounts of drug usage. However, then it makes me wonder, why it is that after watching “Blow” anyone would wish they were the  genius behind the operation and that it was them living the high life even if it meant breaking the law?And now, I realize it’s because the movie portrays George Jung and his crew as the “good guys” and the “police” or the “law” as being “the other.” When I’m sure if the exact same thing were to happen to someone now during my lifetime and viewing it in real life and not the way a movie portrays it I would definitely view the police and the law as the good guys and the drug dealer as “The other.” I also think it’s funny how while watching I even viewed Jung’s mother as the bad guy when she calls the police on Jung when I know something like that takes courage and some may even say is the right thing to do.  

Historical:

According to wikipedia.org, In search of even greater profits, Jung expanded his operation to flying the drugs in from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico using planes stolen from private airports on Cape Cod and professional pilots. At the height of this enterprise, Jung and his associates were reportedly making $250,000 a month. This soon ended when Jung was arrested in Chicago for marijuana smuggling in 1974. He had been staying at the Playboy Club where he was to meet a connection that would pick up the marijuana; however, the connection was arrested for heroin smuggling and reported on Jung. Jung was sent to a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Jung’s cellmate was Carlos Lehder, a young German-Colombian man who introduced Jung to the Colombian Cartel and Jung taught Lehder how to smuggle. The day that Jung was released he was to contact Lehder in Florida, in order to begin preparation. Their plan was to fly hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Pablo Escobar’s Colombian ranch to the U.S., where Jung’s California connection, Richard Barile, took it from there. George never had a problem with exchanging the smuggled cocaine for his transportation fee. Initially, it was $10,000 per kilo but later it went down to $5,000 per kilo as supply grew. He had a security man that would accompany him to the exchanges where George would give the keys to a car and half the cocaine to his connection and leave. A day or two later they would meet up again and exchange keys to cars. Jung was hesitant to allow Lehder, or any other cartel member to know Barile’s identity, as his “California connection” was what gave Jung his edge in the smuggling game and kept others from simply cutting him out. However, in what turned out to be an error in judgment, Jung introduced Lehder to Barile. By the late 1970s, Lehder took his plans to the next level. As Jung had initially feared, by going straight through Richard Barile, Lehder no longer needed Jung in his operation. However, Jung recovered from the betrayal and found other schemes that made him more than $100 million. Jung was later arrested in Massachusetts in 1987 at his mansion on Nauset Beach. With his family, he skipped bail, but very quickly became involved in another deal. He was eventually betrayed by a pilot of his acquaintance.

 

 Technical:

The movie cover for “Blow” definitely consists of high-key lighting and displays an upbeat mood. The key light seems to be coming from the upper left corner aiming down and the fill light from the right. The fill isn’t very intense creating fast fall-off on their faces and lower part of their body. There also appears to be a background light present. The white substance where it says “smart,sexy and dangerous” is a denotation because it’s the most basic or literal meaning of a sign and it is obviously cocaine and represents cocaine. The Money laying on top of them seems to be connotation of Power and Success. 

 

 

 

Ethical, cultural, and critical: 

That’s questionable #9

I think it’s questionable for us to attempt to define both Arab masculinity and femininity just by viewing various forms of media because as is commonly stated in class the media is so much of the time were we get our stereo types and learn to view and identify mass cultures of people so just because the media defines Arab femininity or masculinity in a specific way doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.

 

 

Arab femininity

Personal:

After viewing various visuals and audio visuals of Arab women, specifically those of the Muslim religion, my personal definition of Arab femininity is of course one who is of the female gender, who while is intelligent and has the ability to be independent, must be submissive to the male gender and must maintain a level of privacy which is typically done by the veiling and covering the body. Furthermore, Arab femininity means playing the role in the household expected by her culture, family, and religion. And lastly, Arab femininity means revealing your personality and who you are on the inside rather than letting your outside define who you are.

at the top are three visuals two audio visual and one still visual. I chose to look at all three before personally defining Arab women. However, I only analyzed the third visual which is a picture of an Arab Muslim woman wearing the hijab with what appear to be prison bars in front of her eyes.

My initial reaction to this photograph was that the photographer is trying to show the oppression he/she believes the Muslim women face.

Historical:

According to good old wikipedia.org:

ijab or ħijāb is the Arabic term for “cover” (noun), based on the root meaning “to veil, to cover, to screen, to shelter”

In some Arabic-speaking countries and Western countries, the word hijab primarily refers to women’s head and body covering, but in Islamic scholarship, hijab is given the wider meaning of modesty, privacy, and morality. Several scholars have suggested that the phrase “she donned the hijab” was originally used to mean “she became Muhammad’s wife.”

The term hijab or veil is not used in the Qur’an to refer to an article of clothing for women or men, rather it refers to a spatial curtain that divides or provides privacy. The Qur’an instructs the male believers (Muslims) to talk to wives of Muhammad behind a hijab. This hijab was the responsibility of the men and not the wives of Muhammad. However, in later Muslim societies this instruction specific to the wives of Muhammad was generalized, leading to the segregation of the Muslim men and women. The modesty in Qur’an concerns both men’s and women’s gaze, gait, garments, and genitalia. The clothing for women involves khumūr over the necklines and jilbab (cloaks) in public so that they may be identified and not harmed. Guidelines for covering of the entire body except for the hands, the feet, and the face, are found in texts of fiqh and hadith that are developed later.

So in essence the wearing of the hijab is based off text from the Qur’an and not necessarily just something women of the Arab/Muslim culture are forced to wear by the society/males as some people might think.

Technical:

Although this photograph gives a very close-up view of the subject I would say that the photographer used three-point lighting however, with there being such slow fall-off it is hard to distinguish which side of the subject the key light is coming from and which side the fill light is coming from. There also appears to be cast-shadows which can be seen on the woman’s faces as a result of the shadow from the bars in front of her eyes.

The signifier in this photograph is undoubtedly the bars which signify the oppression and objectification the photographer believes women of the Muslim religion are constantly struggling with.

Ethical, cultural, and Critical:

While I don’t think this picture is unethical, after viewing various visuals of Arab women, I do believe the photographer to be slightly inaccurate. After watching the videos above it seems that Muslim women are fine with wearing the hijab and don’t see it as oppressive in anyway, but rather as a way to reveal their inner beauty rather than their outer beauty. However, I could be mistaken, maybe the photographer wanted to communicate how Arab women of the Muslim religion are oppressed and metaphorically imprisoned in other ways not just because they are “forced” to wear the hijab. I am not very familiar with the Muslim religion so it may in fact be a religion that is very oppressive towards women, and although when asked, Muslim women might not agree they are being oppressed, it may just be hard for them to identify being that they are on the inside looking out rather than the outside looking in.

That’s questionable #8

I think it’s questionable that everything in a movie from the words, and lighting etc. to every camera frame and vector is done for a specific reason and has a meaning behind it. I think in amazingly good movies as well as award winning movies this might be the case, but I think it’s just impossible that every movie is done so meticulously that everything is placed and done for a reason. I say this because it is just too hard to make everything mean something and every item represents something especially with little things like clothing color (not style because I know that’s important) and vectors.

Movie Scene analyzation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGDvy4rgNMA

 

Scene from the movie Crash

(the part of the scene I analyzed doesn’t appear until the sceene in the house of the couple that got robbed)

This film was released directed by Paul Haggis and released fall of 2005. It stars Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Terrence Dashon Howard, Ludacris, Thandie Newton, and Ryan Phillippe   

Personal:

I specifically chose this movie because it won an academy award and I figured it would have good use of lighting, framing, signifiers etc. since that also seems to be what critics look for in a movie. However, that is not the only reason why I chose it. I think “Crash” is a really good movie and figured it would be an interesting one to analyze, which turned out to be true. I thought there were better scenes in the movie, but I had a hard time finding them on youtube. There are tons of intense and emotional scenes in this movie and although I was not able to find one of the scenes I really enjoyed the scene I did choose isn’t bad at all . I also think the themes in this movie are partly what makes it such a good movie along with the actors in it.

Historical:

I had a hard time finding the historical aspect of this scene but if anyone has any ideas please let me know it would be very intresting to see what historical aspect might be in this seen that I missed

Technical:

The scene starts out with Sandra bullock walking down the stairs towards the Hispanic man fixing the door. The lighting is warm and gives the viewer the feeling of night and adds to the feeling of how the lighting of a house usually appears at night. Sandra standing and the young man kneeling on the floor is a signifier which signifies the superiority bullock has over the young man. Bullock then proceeds to walk through the hall into the living room and the hall she walks through creates a graphic vector. The camera shows a visual of both the dinning room and the living room which although surrounded by Christmas decorations which attempt to give it the “homey” look the paperwork, computers, people in suits, and all the fuss undoubtedly overwhelms the scene which signifies how the robbery at gun point has affected both Bullocks and her husbands home life. Furthermore, as the two talk the camera zooms in on both their faces as they talk rotating back and fourth between the two during the conversation (the camera looks up when the man talks and down when Bullock talks. I know there’s a word for this but I can’t think of what it is). By the camera doing this it gives the viewer a sense of closeness and connects the viewer with the actors on a personal level so that the viewer almost can feel the sense of anguish the couple is suffering from. Moreover, as Bullock begins to talk about color and race the camera shoots over and focuses on the black women in the living room where she gives off the facial expression that shows her feelings of vulnerability. Finally, Bullock walks to the kitchen and stands for a moment, then the camera turns and focuses on the young man through the gaps/holes in the stairs. This does 2 things, gives the viewer the impression they are looking at the man through the eyes of Bullock, and gives the viewer a specific focus on the young man’s head without actually zooming in and focusing because the holes in the stairs create a frame just around his head so that the camera doesn’t have to. Oh and throughout the scene I was attentive to the lighting however I didn’t see anything unusual or unique about the lighting whether it be a change of lighting to better suit the conversation or a specific sort of lighting to make the viewer feel a certain way, but if anyone notices anything different please point it out. 

 

 

 

 

Ethical, Cultural, and Critical:

The movie has various themes, but I think one of the main themes is race and gender. I don’t feel like there are any ethical issues with this movie and I think it does a good job addressing various stereotypes as well as issues people seem to have with different cultures, races, and ethnicities in the U.S.

Album Cover (Assignment #5)

The album I chose to analize is the Maroon 5 “Songs About Jane album” which was released in June of 2004.

·  lighting and color This is definitely a painting/drawing, and because of the lack of shadow and dimension it appears to more so relate to that of an animated woman rather than a real woman. The color seems to simply consists of different hues of red and the color black, so if it was portraying a character of the real world I would compare the color to being around late afternoon and consisting of warm lighting.   

• composition and framing

The artist framed the woman to be a little off to the left, with the framing cutting her off at the thigh, and enough space between the top of her head and the top of the frame to make it visually pleasing to the viewer. I think the artist intentionally placed her more towards the left side of the picture so that he/she could also include the box she’s holding and the substance floating out of it without losing the balance of the picture in order to once again keep the picture visually pleasing to the viewer.

• Meaning — what does it mean? How does it mean?

According to Wikipedia, “The title refers to Jane Herman, lead singer Adam Levine’s ex-girlfriend” and with that in mind I realize the woman holding the box in the photo must be a signifier that signifies Pandora opening the pithos that according to Wikipedia released all the evils of mankind— greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining— leaving only hope inside once she had closed it again. After realizing this I went back and read the lyrics to the songs on that album and realized that most of the songs consisted of the wrong and heartbreaking things Jane Herman did, which is what the black thick lines floating out of the box must signify, as well as included lyrics about the negative feelings Adam feels towards her. 

That’s questionable #7

In class you said something along the lines of, “There is always a psychological reason for why people listen to the music they listen to,” (not a direct quote, I just put it in quotes so you would know the theory I’m arguing) whether it be because they connect with it sub-consciously or consciously. For example, people who feel oppressed tend to listen to rap etc. I partly agree with this however, I also think sometimes people do just listen to things simply because it has a good beat and is easy to dance to not because of some psychological reason. I say this because there have been plenty of songs where I didn’t even like the lyrics or felt I identified with the music but listened to it because the beat and sound were good and pleasant to listen to.