The Perfect Girl

Stick-skinny models with long, perfectly curled hair and flawless skin bombard advertisements all around us. While growing up every girl is told that it is unhealthy and harmful to be that skinny; however, many people still have the desire to be exactly like the “perfectly” built swimsuit models they see in the media. What none of the advertisements explain is that most of the images are photo shopped and edited, and it is not physically possible to look like the ads. Dove, the cosmetic company, came out with a commercial called Dove Evolution to show what really happens behind the scenes of the making of an advertisement. While this commercial is only a little over a minute long the message it portrays is one that should be passed along to every generation until advertisements of photo shopped women cease.

Pounds of make-up and hairspray, and countless hair styling tools are only the beginning of the process the model in the dove evolution commercial endures. The clip displays the hair and make-up process condensed into thirty seconds, and by the end the model is almost unrecognizable. Next hundreds of pictures are taken and from the hundred, one is deemed to be a good starting point. The last thirty seconds demonstrates the scary process of the advertising industry, which is hidden as best as possible from the public. This is the use of Photoshop. The commercial displays an employee’s computer screen manipulating every part of the models face: her eyes and lips are made larger, her neck is lengthened, and her face size is shrunk just to name a few alterations. Then, finally they produce the picture which is used for advertisements.

The picture of Faith Hill, a well-known country singer, is another example of just how much editing is done to pictures before a magazine prints them. Faith Hill looks beautiful in the first image, but apparently her skin is not smooth enough, her arms are not thin enough, and her hair is not the perfect shade of blonde for the magazine. The reason advertisers feel the need to do this is discussed in Feminism and Pop Culture. Andi Zeisler states the “chief aim” of advertising is to make women “feel insecure and off balance for most of their waking moments: too short, too tall, too fat, too skinny, dull-haired, lumpy-bottomed, flat-chested, thin-lipped, too pale, not pale enough, too smart, too dumb, not sexy, a lax housekeeper, a lazy cook, a bad mother, a neglectful spouse”(Zeisler 24). By portraying women who appear perfect, the companies’ hope is that women will desire to be like them and buy their product. Zeisler’s quote touches on seventeen traits that advertisers try to make women feel they lack in, but the possibilities of traits that they could choose to attack are endless. This is what leads people to believe that there is only one specific way a person should look or act based on what they view in the media. Dove is the leading company that is striving to end these beliefs.

The set of the Dove Evolution commercial is strategically planned to enhance their message. The choice of showing just the model’s face makes the audience focus on her and nothing else. Not even the make-up artists or hair stylist’s faces are shown during the commercial. In addition, the background of the commercial is a neutral gray.

The creators of the advertisements wanted to insure that there would be no other distractions. Making the background and setting as neutral as possible is the best way to guarantee their message is understood.

Today’s youth is constantly exposed to pictures in magazines, on televisions, billboards, and posters that illustrate women and men who are not even real people. The amount of editing and retouching done on a picture before it is considered appropriate for advertisements is incredible. It makes sense that everyone wants to look the picture perfect way that appears in the media and in advertisements. The real danger is that the majority of people do not realize that photo shopping and editing are done. There is no way to avoid this constant pressure to look a certain way. Dove’s evolution commercial’s purpose is to bring light to the fact that retouching and make-up completely change appearance of people, and that no one will ever be able to look the way that magazine’s depict the models, but this is only one small attempt and to truly change the advertisement industry it is going to take much more intensive approach than this one commercial; however, this company has made a monumental step in the right direction!

"Time-lapse beauty/Dove Evolution Commercial." Video. YouTube. First Dove. Toronto: Reginald Pike, 2006. Web. 20 Sep 2011. .

"Faith Hill Edited ." Photograph. Redbook. First Last. New York City: Hearst Corporation , 2007. Web. 20 Sep 2011.

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Zeilser, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. 1st ed. . Berkeley, California : Seal Press, 2008. 24. Print.