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“The Good Place’s” Jameela Jamil Will Not Stand For Avon’s Body-Shaming Ads

by Allie Lawrence

Jameela Jamil is an actor on The Good Place and an outspoken body positivity activist who will not be silenced. Most recently, on Twitter, Jamil criticized the beauty company Avon for body shaming women with their most recent marketing scheme, which poorly promoted a Naked Proof product that supposedly combats cellulite. According to the Huffington Post, Avon has pulled their marketing materials for the product thanks to Jamil’s tweets.

In December 2018, Jamil wrote the following in a BBC essay on why she believes airbrushing should be illegal:

“It is anti-feminist. It is ageist. It is fat-phobic. It looks weird. It looks wrong. It’s robbing you of your time, money, comfort, integrity and self worth…We need to see spots. We need to see wrinkles. We need to see cellulite and stretch marks. If not, we will become almost allergic to the sight of them, even though we all have these things on our own bodies…Don’t give your money to any institution that sells you the lie of ‘perfection’. They are trying to break you, so you will hate yourself and go out and buy something you don’t need, in order to fix something that was never broken in the first place.”

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Avon’s marketing included a smiling woman with the text “dimples are cute on your face (not on your thighs)”

DxSiQJAUYAAE6X8 660d6Image from Jameela Jamil’s Twitter post

Jamil’s Twitter callout proceeded as follows:

And yet EVERYONE has dimples on their thighs, I do, you do, and the CLOWNS at @Avon_UK certainly do. Stop shaming women about age, gravity and cellulite. They’re inevitable, completely normal things. To make us fear them and try to “fix”them, is to literally set us up for failure pic.twitter.com/78kqu3nHeE

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) January 19, 2019

Hi Jameela, we intended this to be light hearted and fun, but we realize we missed the mark. We’ve removed this messaging from all marketing materials. We support our community in loving their bodies and feeling confident in their own skin.

— Avon (@AvonInsider) January 19, 2019

Here is the full picture for those of you being told on this thread by @Avon_UK that this is not their responsibility… pic.twitter.com/78q6iAchzG

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) January 19, 2019

Hi Jameela, we completely understand where you’re coming from. We realize that we missed the mark with this messaging. We have removed this messaging from all future marketing materials. We fully support our community in loving their bodies and feel confident in their own skin.

— Avon (@AvonInsider) January 19, 2019

Every body is beautiful, unless they have any “flaws” I guess. What a gross abuse of the body positive movement. I want you all to look out for this constant manipulation. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s everywhere. You are constantly being manipulated to self hate. pic.twitter.com/cUnV8N3lD8

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) January 19, 2019

We hear you and we apologize. We messed up on our Smooth Moves Naked Proof messaging. We want to let you know that we are working diligently to remove this messaging from our marketing materials moving forward. We’re on it. We love our community of women. pic.twitter.com/lUyK3EyfAy

— Avon (@AvonInsider) January 20, 2019

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Avon may have apologzied and removed the advertisement in an attempt to right a wrong, but they should be prepared for people to boycott their products as a consequence of their insensitive marketing. Avon’s advertisement was obviously harmful to women’s body image, and I respect and appreciate Jameela Jamil for using her platform to speak out against this deplorable body-shaming marketing technique.

If Avon truly “loves their community of women,” their marketing materials should reflect a love and respect for all bodies. If Avon and other beauty product companies want to go a step further in supporting their customers, they shouldn’t be selling products that attempt to “fix” a body in any way. A brand called “Naked Proof” is not a product worth promoting in the first place; normalizing being “naked-proof” is not only body shaming, but flat out wrong. To me, beauty products that are for self-care or self-empowerment, and are marketed as such, are worth purchasing. Like Jameela Jamil, I am tired of being targeted by product ads that tell me there is something wrong with me.

Top photo: The Good Place/NBC

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