This week has been a rather interesting week in the news for large companies, particularly Unilever, who has been accused of retouching the photos of the models used in the Dove ‘real beauty’ campaign. This story to me seems more interesting because of the potential public relations crisis it could be for Unilever and the Dove brand.
The sad thing about the whole issue is that it was probably unavoidable. In my limited experience, it is very rare that a photo goes from camera to magazine/billboard/commercial/newspaper without being retouched a little – whether to enhance the brightness, or finish, or for some other perfectly reasonable cause. The question to be asked however is what kind of retouching was done. The photographer Pascal Dangin was quoted as saying:
“Do you know how much retouching was on that? But it was great to do, a challenge to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.” – The New Yorker c/o The Toronto Star
Charming fellow isn’t he?
Only days later he issued a statement through Unilever saying that the photos were not altered. But the damage was already done.
It will be interesting to see if and how this affects the Campaign for Real Beauty and how Dove will deal with it. One thing’s for sure though, in any campaign it is important that all the key parties (and even some you might not think of as key) understand the goals and purpose of your campaign. Maybe if dear old Dangin understood why it was important for the campaign to show real women (or at the least why the public should think they were real women) then he might have kept a tighter reign on his tongue.
Then again maybe not. And I’m sure there’s another lesson in that too.
Wow, his eloquence is beyond words. I think it’s taken society (and the ad-makers) quite a while to understand this shift in image. For so many years, the average woman was depicted so unrealistically, it’s still difficult for people to grasp that, this ‘new look’ for women – IS the real woman and has been for many, many years. Accept it already, what’s the big deal?
His flippancy regarding this – may just have cost him his reputation. But does he really care? That is the question.
Rhonda: really enjoyed reading your post.
One of America’s most famous women, Oprah Winfrey, looks quite thinner and younger on most of the covers of her magazine then she does on her television show. I think she’s been taken to task for this; but, as you point out: what ad, magazine shot, etc. hasn’t been retouched in some way?
As a middle-aged women, I wouldn’t want a photographer to make me look thinner, but, I always like my hair to look great, so, that can be retouched any time!
Don’t get mad at Pascal Dangin who was just doing a job he was paid to do. Get mad at Dove which has apparently convinced a lot of women it really does care about challenging the beauty norms. The Campaign for Real Beauty is about selling soap, period. To make itself stand out from the competition, Dove pretends to have a social conscience. But although they are paying lip service to “real beauty,” the executives know very well they will not sell many products if their models are shown with their wrinkles and cellulite untouched. So they cynically hired an expert photographer to make the models appear to be “natural.” The only thing Dangin did wrong was speak too openly about the amount of retouching he did. If you think what he did was an insult to the dignity of “real women” everywhere, again, the real culprit is Dove who directed him to alter the hell out of the pictures until they were just “natural” enough.