Dove Campaign for "Real" Beauty

This campaign fascinates me. Especially given that we've been talking about the Marxian critiques of media, specifically the Frankfurt School and Althusser, I think it provides an interesting debate. Can Dove, which is undoubtedly in the business of beauty, define what *real* beauty is?

So, the Campaign for Real Beauty should be searched through carefully. While we watched the "film" in class, as I was sifting through the site, the actual ideology of the campaign seems to emerge for me. What is Dove's concept of "real" beauty and how does it mesh with what you necessarily think of as real beauty. In trying to answer that question myself, I started wondering whether I am able to develop an idea of my own of what *real* beauty is without using the references provided to me by Dove. Why is that so hard? Is the an effect of mass media or is it that *real* beauty really cannot be defined?

Making things even trickier is their new campaign, a contest for a "regular" woman who could win the new commercial ad in the campaign for real beauty. The finalists can be found here. How does this change the campaign...now we have "real" women producing "real" beauty...does this get us further away from the trappings of mass media or more deeply ingrained in them? Also check out the intro by Amy Brenneman, the celebrity version of a *real* woman.

What might Althusser say about all of this? What is the meaning of that which is not pictured in this campaign for real beauty and how might his analysis differ from that of Adorno and Horkheimer?

And then there's this video, part of the Campaign for Real Beauty:



I just get a sinking feeling watching these. While ultimately, they are supposed to clearly indicate an change in ideology about beauty, can we (and should we) buy into what this is selling, especially given that it is produced by a company who is selling beauty products. While our knee-jerk reaction may be to applaud Dove, does our doing so only serve to enforce a very specific kind of beauty (just one that doesn't support plastic surgery and pills)? What are these images of beauty missing? And if they're missing something, doesn't that mean that the new ideology is still problematic?