I seriously disliked this campaign, it was like a freak show. Those giant white underwears have irreparably damaged my psyche. Anyway, yes, none of those women had cellulite or stretchmarks or visible tummy bulge despite some of them being significantly overweight, which is very hard to believe. And the whole point of this is that you have to compare yourself to the women in the ads, which I always find curious and unnecessary. It still keeps the expected dynamic between the audience and the image in the ad: The image is something to measure yourself against, only this time it’s not that bad because the women are as out of shape as you are!! And I didn’t get the shampoo ads with the older women, You’d think reaching old age would have given you enough sense to not worry that your 65 year old hair does not look like a digitally enhanced weave on a 19 year old model. And don’t get me started on their “Pro-Age” ant- aging line, which included deodorant and shampoo. Who knew you had to buy products to fight underarm aging? Sigh…The parent company of Dove also owns the Axe body spray line of products, and those ads are certainly not pro-women. Ads are not there to build character or self-esteem, they’re there to sell stuff and make money, how do people not get this?

I think I love that they re-touched the “real women”. I mean, you expect that for the professional models…it’s just somehow so gratifying that the “imperfect” women, glorified for their imperfections-being-good-enough had to be touched up. The campaign was nice but bogus, where were all the fatties with stomachs?? Hmm? I want to see fatties. And old women. I want to see long gray hair. I do. Deal with it and get real.

FTW!!!