By Mary Best
Opinion Editor
The tug-of-war regarding positive body images for women is in the tightest stalemate ever. People shamelessly declare their love for their own bodies but also endlessly complain about the lack of decent representation of real beauty and the average-sized woman.
Luckily, Dove Australia is tackling the decidedly negative media head on with a new ad campaign that should be carried over to the United States.
As part of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, launched in 2004 to enlist “real women” models to promote women’s self-esteem, “The Ad Makeover” strives to combat negative advertising, according to an April 23 Huffington Post article. The campaign, created by Ogilvy, designed a Facebook application Australian women can log into on Facebook and create colorful, positive ads to replace the negative, “Hide your muffin top” ones that clog the side of Facebook profiles.
Sounds ideal, right? Instead of scrolling through your recent wall posts or looking for that funny YouTube clip while biting ads prey on your insecurities, you could see a pretty message encouraging you to flaunt them.
The one thing wrong with this campaign? It’s not on U.S. soil.
A 2011 Glamour survey revealed 97 percent of women surveyed have at least one negative thought about their body in one day. That may not seem like a lot, but the average woman, according to the research, had 13 negative body thoughts throughout one full day.
In a society with countless fashion trends, supposed increases in “Body Peace Treaties,” where women of all ages pledge to love their bodies no matter their size, and a struggling effort to stamp out negative self-image, there is no reason women should still be feeling badly about how they look.
It’s a vicious cycle. The same magazines preaching tips on how to look and feel confident at any age and size rarely ever feature someone above size 6 on their cover. Hypocrisy in the media is more noticeable than ever thanks to campaigns like Dove Australia’s, and it’s an idea that deserves promotion in the U.S.
Thanks to the Internet, the magic of “The Ad Makeover” can be read about all across the world. But the whole point of the campaign won’t stand out by itself. Even though Dove seems to be getting this whole “positive self-image” thing right, the sooner it brings it here, the better.
Get those tweets going, ladies. In the age of YouTube campaigns to ask Justin Timberlake or Mila Kunis to a military ball, we can use social media to fuel the overseas move of “The Ad Makeover.” I can guarantee I’m not the only one who would rather see a positive message about loving myself on my Facebook profile rather than some over-embellished photograph of a woman’s midriff that buys you a one-way ticket on the guilt trip of what you ate today.
“The Ad Makeover” might be the only successful attempt at fighting fire with fire, and American women deserve to receive some positive feedback.
After all, we do live in America, the Beautiful.
bestmk10@bonaventure.edu
