Hello everyone!
The holiday weekend is finally upon us – a chance for us all to take a breath and get ready for the summer season ahead. But before we get too much into the holiday spirit here’s a great little debate I wanted to throw out to you all.
Turns out the folks at Dove may have a bit of hot water to go with all that soap they make.
Check out the photo above for the company’s latest Visible Care campaign. Do you find it racist? Some people are saying it is…
As an African American woman, I’m pretty attuned to complaints of this nature and when I see something shady I call it.
In this case the controversy revolves around the (alleged) inference that in the BEFORE picture, the woman is dark and less than desirable – since she hasn’t used the product.
But if the consumer uses the product they’ll get lighter and lighter, hence the AFTER photo, showing the transformation to a more desirable, white woman. Do you see? I don’t buy it as part of a covert messaging campaign. Overt, well, that’s another matter altogether.
You see, Dove and its brilliant ad department could have avoided controversy altogether if they, like so many Madison Avenue ad agencies, weren’t so damn homogenous. Why does that matter? Because, as I have said before in this space, media shape the way we see our world. In this country, race is still such a hot button issue, because instead of bringing it out in the open and dealing with it, we swept it under the rug and acted like everything was okay. News flash; anyone who thinks we’re left those problems in the 60’s and that all is good now that we have a black man living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is deluding themselves. The subtleties of race still permeate so much of American society; even the leader of the free world doesn’t get a pass.
But that said I don’t believe this advert was intended to be racist. I do, however, fault Dove and its ad agency for not looking closely enough and at least anticipating that the advert could have been construed this way.
But what do you think?
Is this Dove ad overtly or covertly racist? Do you see insensitivity or just a dunderhead layout? Or are people reading too much into the campaign?
Start commenting everyone – I can’t wait to hear what you think…
