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Beauty and Self Perception: A review of Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign
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With social media and the blogosphere brimming with vast and drastically contrasting views on this recent phenomenon, I felt that I had a few things to share. Thoughts, personal opinions….all up for debate.
It might be only me, but my first reaction to the video was that it is much more about self-perception than about beauty. There is not much meaning in saying someone is more beautiful than she thinks, as it is entirely a matter of perception. The idea therefore is about a more positive image of oneself. The message did not even strike me as being gender specific before I read the several critiques of it. Beauty seemed only incidental, the concept of the video could apply to any of the various traits in ourselves that we judge (often too harshly) and which contribute to our overall self image.
It did not surprise me that the strangers in the video described the women in a more positive light than they did themselves. After all don’t most of us grow up learning that it is mean and socially inappropriate to say negative things about another person’s appearance? At the same time aren’t we also made to believe that praising your own beauty makes us come across as haughty and vain? While I do think a lot of the comments the participants in the video made about themselves were indeed driven by a genuine sense of insecurity, it seemed only natural that a nice and polite stranger (as described in http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682823/the-story-behind-doves-mega-viral-real-beauty-sketches-campaign) who met them for the first time would be more generous in describing them than they themselves, just going by codes of good social conduct. So the point being made was that we could look at ourselves in a more positive light if we chose to, just as these strangers did (which might be driven by what they considered socially appropriate behaviour). It’s after all, all in the mind! And that, is a powerful message!
However, I do see some of the points made by the myriad articles and posts criticizing the video. One consistent and fundamental objection against it has been that it reinforces the cultural stereotype of valuing external appearance as an asset, and that too, as per a narrow definition of beauty set forth by socio-cultural conditioning as a measure of self worth. True, in an ideal world people’s notion of self worth should not be tied to physical beauty. Definitely not to the extent of affecting career choices, choice of friends and passing on inferiority complex to the next generation. In an ideal world it should be ok to not look good. But the truth is we do not live in an ideal world.
A lot of people blame media and beauty product brands for promoting the aspirational value of beauty. While they certainly play a role, I think the issue is more inherent, not to mention, far more timeless. It probably started at time immemorial with all the ballads and poetry extolling feminine beauty. But that’s besides the point.
This is an intuition (somewhat validated by a quick glance at Psychology papers), but I believe that to be able to like how one sees oneself is an important contributor to happiness. The idea of aesthetics is intrinsically tied to our sensibilities, and so is the desire to be perceived well by others. I am not altogether sure if it is possible to completely separate one’s own perceived beauty from one’s overall self image and confidence, although, no doubt that would be ideal. At least, not easily. Because it operates at a sub-conscious level. To not like what one sees in the mirror and yet be perfectly at ease with it is indeed difficult to achieve, maybe something that can potentially be altered by several years of conditioning.
What can change more easily, and yes, media plays a huge role here, is the definition of what constitutes beauty. To make it broad enough so that everyone finds something appealing in themselves. To try and break out of stereotypical narrow definitions of what is attractive. To reinforce the idea that everyone is beautiful for different reasons. The Dove campaign is a step in that direction. Though as some of the detractors aptly said, it does use some stereotypical indicators of beauty (e.g. thin, blue eyes, etc.) in its descriptions. But then again, it is not a scripted video. It is real people talking and there is only so much control over the exact details. And it never seemed that the underlying message has anything to do with the specifics.
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