Unless you live under a literal rock, you’ve seen the Dove ad on Facebook that has the comment sections of the world blowing up. The ad has a simple layout: a black girl wearing a skin-tone matching shirt lifts her shirt and changes into a white girl with a skin-tone matching shirt, who then lifts her shirt and changes into a Hispanic girl with a skin-tone matching shirt. Obviously, no one at Dove has any idea what is going on regarding racism and sexism in this country. The image of seeing a smiling black girl changing herself into a white girl is deeply offensive, for many reasons. There is a long history in this country of soap ads promising the bleaching of black skin – part of an even longer line of erasure of blackness.
When hashtags like #blackgirlmagic are poppin’ online, it’s shocking Dove didn’t see the error, and racism, in their ways – but we really shouldn’t be surprised.
As Harper’s Bazaar reports, “in 2011 [Dove] came under fire for an advert which appeared to show the transition of a black woman becoming white from using its body wash. The brand also came under scrutiny for having a lotion that reads for ‘normal to dark skin.’”
Oh, and did you know you can now have Dove body wash in a “pear” shaped bottle just like your pear-shaped-ass? Wow, Dove like so gets me.
Dove has come out apologizing for the ad that never should have existed in the first place, saying they “missed the mark.” Excuse me, what mark were you aiming for? Marissa Solan, spokeswoman for Dove, is quoted in the New York Times, explaining the ad “was intended to convey that Dove Body Wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong, and as a result, offended many people.” She said Dove is “re-evaluating [their] internal process for creating and reviewing content.”
Dove should probably re-evaluate their entire advertising department.
Video via youtube.com/Business Insider
Photo: Dove
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