Real Beauty?

Today, Advertising Age is running an article titled "Dove's 'Real Beauty' Pics Could be Big Phonies" in which they discuss claims by a retouching artist that the "Real Beauties" have been retouched. Ohhh, scandal. I have been involved in retouching more than my share of images and I, like most of the world, knows it happens. Now, what is the difference here? The images are a part of Dove's "Campaign for real beauty." One of the videos, evolve (see embedded video below), shows the extensive retouching of a "plain" looking woman into a model. Gray area, maybe....so I went in search of more information. This is an excerpt that I pulled from the Dove Site: http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/press.asp?id=4563&length=short&section=news 

GREENWICH , CT, June 23, 2005 – Women strongly agree that “the media and advertising set an unrealistic standard of beauty that most women can’t ever achieve.”[i] More than two-thirds of women globally expressed this viewpoint in a recent worldwide study.  Sadly, the impact is that only 13% of women are very satisfied with their body weight and shape,[ii] only 2% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful, and more than half of women say their bodies disgust them.[iii]
Inspired by these findings, Dove^®, the global beauty brand, is launching a new national advertising campaign today starring real women with real bodies and real curves.  The campaign is intended to make more women feel beautiful everyday – celebrating diversity and real women by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty.
 

So reading this, I believe that the intent of the inital campaign was to allow women to see advertising which included body weights and shapes that they could relate to.  Was that effective? I think so, I remember first seeing the campaign and thinking that it was a bold stand for them to take. I noticed their weight and shapes and absence of cellulite, but didn't necessarily care, because it was a step in the right direction. They don't advertise "absolutely no retouching." Honestly, it was shocking enough to see these women in their underwear (who look pretty good) in a magazine, are they required to accentuate each and every bump and lump besides? As a lot of you know, even extensive tweaking of lighting prior to shooting can make an enormous difference in the appearance of a photo, does that need to be disclosed as well? In my opinion, shape and weight were the issues they were addressing, now, if there was major work done in slimming and reshaping the womens bodies, I might feel differently.
 
The only way this is going to be truly clarified is if the original images magically appear, which odds of that are highly unlikely. And, if there was indeed some skin smoothing, cleanup work done, does that discredit the entire campaign? I think not. If you look overall at the Campaign for Real Beauty, the are doing some pretty healthy things for women and for girls, and for that should be applauded.

 

Evolve video