Dove and the campaign "Shattering Beauty Stereotypes"

msante

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
First of all you might want to watch the video (2 min)...


I've been watching this Dove campaign in commercial breaks for weeks now, and I just recently realized that it really annoys me. The truth is that, as I never pay too much attention to these ads, until now I had never sat down to reflect on why I felt between angry and annoyed every time I watched it.

Well, watching the video carefully just once was enough to understand why it provokes this reaction. One might think that it is because of the "subliminal" pro-feminism manifesto or because of the allusion - a bit subtle - to all that fluent gender stuff, ... in short, because of the classic insane postmodern/LGBT[rest of the alphabet] ideas ... but no, it is not because of this, ... I mean, all this does annoy me, but in this case I ended up realizing that what annoyed me most was the slogan of the video: "Shattering Beauty Stereotypes" ...

Then I asked myself why it bothers me so much... the answer was simple: I don't think beauty is a stereotype. As far as I can understand, beauty (in terms of aesthetics) is a universal value governed by mathematical principles; and this counts for what we perceive through our eyes (the visual) as well as for what we hear (music in particular). The shapes drawn in a 2D plane or a 3D space (I can't visualize more Ds but I estimate that it counts for others too) as well as the combination of sounds to make a musical construction, are beautiful when they enclose a harmonic relationship between their parts, and this harmony, I dare to assume, is governed by an order emanated from mathematical relationships.

The Cs once said that "Mathematics is the one and only true universal language"; I think that it is the masterful use of this language that ultimately determines the beauty of the things.

(To be honest I must admit that I barely manage to penetrate the relationship between beauty and mathematics, but I sense that this relationship is tight.)

Of course there are subjective aspects to what each of us judges as beautiful, including when we judge a person to be beautiful or not, but the reality is that many times this judgment is tied to what makes us like or dislike. Ultimately I suppose that our perception of "beauty" can be "colored" by our perception apparatus, our emotions, our experiences, and also why not, it can be limited by our level of consciousness. But beauty, objectively speaking, I think is not necessarily related to what we perceive as beautiful.

To make it short, what I wanted to express is that IMO what this campaign is proposing (although for some might seem comforting) is that we unlearn how much or how little we have learned of this “universal language”, and that we turn off within ourselves the "sensory organ" that allows us to understand and connect with this language.

I don’t know if some of this makes sense, but it is just some ideas that crossed my mind recently...
 
Of course there are subjective aspects to what each of us judges as beautiful, including when we judge a person to be beautiful or not, but the reality is that many times this judgment is tied to what makes us like or dislike. Ultimately I suppose that our perception of "beauty" can be "colored" by our perception apparatus, our emotions, our experiences, and also why not, it can be limited by our level of consciousness. But beauty, objectively speaking, I think is not necessarily related to what we perceive as beautiful.

The main issue with these campaigns to shatter stereotypes, as I see it, is that they focus completely on our subjective experience. They deny that there is any such thing as objective Beauty, or Truth or Goodness. For them it's all a social construct and a power play.

Obviously, our perception of Beauty or of Truth, or Goodness is limited and narrow, biased and all that, culturally influenced up to a point. On that point they are somewhat right. But then instead of seeking to come closer to the objective reality, they instead seek to impose their own (often pathological) version onto society and reality. What good does that do? It's a recipe for disaster.

This is also interesting: Roger Scruton: Why Beauty Matters?
 
Beauty is quantifiable and is transcendent. Naturally, few people will manifest it to high degrees physically in their bodies. That rarity is part of why we admire it. It's an ideal, and it's most readily evident because light travels fast and images are interpreted quickly by our brain.

They are muddying the waters by trying to make everything beautiful in it's own way. But I think beauty is a one way and narrow street. Again, everyone will have certain attributes of it along a range. But this is a sort of way to give out "participation trophies" to everyone. And I can't help but think they will find some way to work sexuality and pedophilia into it. It's like you know where this is going.
 
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