Holewinski 1 Morgan Holewinski Dr.

Guenzel English 1101-0011 13 October 2013 Paper 2 Final Draft Natural Beauty is the Best Beauty Every day there are women who walk past stores such as Hollister, Charlotte Russe, and Victorias Secret and say I wish I looked like that. The images of most brands and stores portray the same idealized female body: slim, tall, tan, and preferably blonde or brunette hair. Woman are no longer happy with the way they look due to our societys view of what being beautiful means. This issue has affected many womens lives and continues to do so today. Presenting awareness about discouraged woman and their beauty can help spread what it really means to be beautiful. So how do these images present awareness to everyday women? To begin with, in 2006 Tim Piper released a film from skincare company Dove, of what people do not realize about beauty. This video started the Dove Evolution Campaign for womens beauty. The video starts off with an average everyday woman who has all natural hair and facial features. In order to see the womans imperfections upon her face, they brighten the lights shade by shade to show where the problem areas are. Over the duration of the video, this average every day woman turns into the face of a supermodel on a billboard. This transformation did not happen by bringing out her natural beauty, but changing it to what would look perfect. Using mass amount of make-up to cover blemishes in skin and to adjust the tone of the skin has helped her transform into this model image. What really made the difference was the use of Photoshop. You can add features, adjust them, and distort them. Her neck was not long enough,

Holewinski 2 her hair had some kinks, her eyebrows were not arched enough, and her cheek bones did not stand out as much as they should of. Photoshop has made this woman the ideal perfect beauty. This clashes with everyday women due to the fact that not all women have the time to put on this much makeup and not enough money to buy this much makeup. Next, in relation to the previous paragraph, Grant-Davies article shows four ways to rhetorically analyze texts with the first being the audience. Davie defines the audience as the potential customer (Grant-Davie). Doves audience would be all of the women who wear makeup, want to wear makeup, and want to look beautiful with makeup. The Dove commercial is also meant for anyone who thinks of themselves as anything but beautiful and what society makes of the definition of beautiful. The audience is first attracted with the background. Instead of having a color background, grey is chosen to allow for the main image to appear smoothly without having a shocking background. Lighting upon the face makes certain feature stand out to the viewer. Using the rule of thirds, they centered her face to the left to make the image more appealing and tense (The Rule of Thirds). Now when people look up at the billboard, they will spend more time analyzing it just because of the position of the image. This allows for extra time to think of how pretty the woman is and what it takes to be that way. Truthfully, the woman on the billboard does not look like that 90% of the time. She looks as if she is wearing barely any makeup but really has so much on. Photoshop improved everything that the makeup couldnt. Dove made this video to allow the viewer to see how they, the viewer, are deceived in most advertisements with the use of make-up and technology (Piper). Doves evolution campaign did not stop there. In 2012 Dove introduced their real beauty campaign in contrast to Victorias Secret love my body campaign fashion show (Insider). The Dove advertisement for real beauty takes regular woman and has them model.

Holewinski 3 What is this advertisement showing? Dove is trying to portray that beauty is not only skin deep. Even though they are not all a size four, they are still beautiful. They all wear white to show they are all equal to one another. The complete white background of the photo allows for no distraction to any specific area of the photo. The photographers want the viewers to look at the entire picture rather than just a section. The difference in body shape shows inconsistency is equal. Even though all of the undergarments are white, they are different styles. Why would not all of the models wear the same set? Wearing different sets shows that different styles fit different people in different ways, but does not affect the level of sexiness each woman has. (Insider). To continue, Grant Davies rhetorical situation of the audience and discourse can be found in this text. The Dove Real Beauty Campaign photograph is meant for the part of the audience who either feels uncomfortable with their body or those who flaunt their beauty no matter what they look like. This campaign is trying to get women to come out and be open with their figure. Women need to know they can feel beautiful no matter what they look like. Dove made the point to show people that their company is made for all types of beauty, which gives them the advantage over other companies who portray only one type of beauty. The Victorias Secret love my body campaign takes the opposite approach to Dove. Instead of incorporating all body types, only one is portrayed. The flat stomach, distinct collar bone, and thigh gap are the same in all 7 women. The viewer now has the impression that the only way to love their body is to have a body like those on the Victorias Secret poster. In order to make the viewer spend more time looking at the bodies of the models, the photographers outlined each figure with grey. The variant shadows are focused towards the middle, where a person would notice the flat stomach, distinct collar bone, and thigh gap. Unlike the Dove

Holewinski 4 models, the Victorias Secret models are uniform. They all have similar hair styles, the same undergarment set, and same body type as mentioned before (Insider). The viewer will walk away with the thought that this is the only way I can look in order to be beautiful. In reality, if women wiped off the make-up, took off all the fashionable clothes, and let our hair naturally fall for a day, society would see that beauty is not only skin deep. The Victorias Secret Love My Body Campaign is meant for those who love their body themselves, but also are society beautiful enough for people, other than themselves, to love their body too. The purpose of this campaign is to make women think they will be beautiful if they wear their clothes. Because of their one-type body they portray, not all women will want to wear or use their products. This causes constraint on their advertisements and limits demand for their products. To finalize, beauty is based on the person as a whole. Has anyone ever said to you Do not get ugly with me? This statement refers to ones personality. Regardless if you are beautiful on the outside, if your personality is not beautiful, then most of your beauty is taken away in all areas. Beauty is defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form that pleases aesthetic sense, especially the sight (Mueni). Women compare themselves to this definition and forget all of the other things that actually make them beautiful. Everyone who has felt or has been called ugly, take a step back. If you do not think you are beautiful, then why should anyone else?

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Works Cited
Dove Evolution. Dir. Tim Piper. 2006. 08 October 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U>. Grant-Davie, Keith. "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents." Elizabeth Wardle, Doug Downs. Writing about Writing. 2011. 101-116. Insider, Business. See the Difference Between Victoria's Secret and Dove Models. 8 December 2012. <http://www.businessinsider.com/victorias-secret-angels-vs-dove-models-2012-12>. Mueni. A Thought on How to Choose Which is Beautiful. 28 August 2010. <http://relijournal.com/christianity/a-thought-on-how-to-choose-that-which-is-beautiful/>. The Rule of Thirds. 30 September 2013. Inc. Wikimedia Foundation. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds>.