(Dove’s Commercial “Onslaught”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Ei6JvK0W60I&feature=endscreen

(Green Movement’s Commercial “Onslaughter”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odI7pQFyjso

As you can see, I’ve put two commercials up for my post (whether or not they are just links or the actual video, I could not tell you, but I encourage you to watch them anyway). The first commercial is specifically for the product “Dove”. I’m sure most of you are aware of what that product is, but for those of you who don’t, Dove is a corporation that sells to the beauty industry. They make shampoos, soaps, and all that jazz. Now, assuming you’ve watched the first commercial, then it’s pretty obvious what Dove was trying to get across. They even said it at the very end when the little redhead girl was crossing the street to go to school. They stated:

 “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.”

This simply means that Dove does not support the type of propaganda used to make woman feel like they are not pretty enough. Sounds heartwarming, right? Believing in one’s self has always been a crowd pleaser. Using the cute little girl as their motif, the commercial pulls at your heartstrings and gives you that feeling of, justice-will-prevail. The feeling also pushes you to think that Dove is a caring company. They want your children to look beautiful without the pressure of propaganda breathing down your children’s throat. So in turn, Dove’s products are bought, because they are seen as a compassionate company that wants only beauty to come from within.

So, if Dove is such a compassionate company, then why go against them? Didn’t that little redhead girl make you feel something? Of course it did, but she’s not the only little girl that can make your heart ache. The second commercial was made under a large scale green movement to go against the companies that were heavily using palm oil in their products, such as Dove and Nestlé. This commercial is basically a mockery of Dove’s commercial to demonstrate the devastation Dove has had over Indonesia’s rain forests.

 “98% of Indonesia’s lowland forest will be gone by the time Azizah is 25.”  

 Just like when Dove used their statement of beauty to spark an emotion of injustice, so does this commercial. The only difference is that of who this injustice is being focused on. The commercial also takes it a step further, and gives the little girl a name and a home. Dove’s commercial did no such thing, giving their little girl an unknown identity. She was but a model in the sense of female empowerment. But the green movement’s commercial wanted the audience to have a connection with their little girl to the extent of knowing who she was and how her life was going to end up without those forests.

Each commercial used horrific images of destruction and disgust. From the gut retching imagines of trees being hacked to pieces and lifeless chimps crusted with dried blood, to the sickening videos of scalpels cutting into the skin, only to recreate a new plastic version of a nose or lip. I for one am sickened by both. The use of surgical and chemical induced risks just to make someone’s body look nice does not give me that warm fuzzy feeling; nor does the idea of having to chop down an entire rain forest with an abundance of life and futility. I like the way I look, and I like our rain forests to be still there in the next 25 years or more.

So what are your thoughts or feelings for these commercials? Do either of those little girls make you feel anything? In my opinion, both commercials have big bold statements that I can agree with. Beauty is much prettier when it comes from within, but I’m sure as heck not going to cut down a Indonesian rain forest to prove that.