DOVE - You are more beautiful than you think!

This made me cry, but in a good way

I know it is a great video. I guess we don't see ourselves like other see us. thanks for posting....

Today was the first time I saw this video, reminder that at times we are our own harshest critics. It hasn't played over here on TV yet but hope it does soon.

pass the tissues please. beautiful TheMinis!

sweet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's one thing knowing it, but another thing acting on it.

tell me please

acting on it means?

thanks

It means behaving in accordance to your belief. For example, you know it's the right thing to hold a door open for the person behind you but that's meaningless until you remember to always hold a door open for the person behind you.

Likewise, it's fine to know that there are many kinds of beauty in the world but that's meaningless if we still continue to criticise ourselves (or other women) for not meeting only one strict criteria of beauty.

Knowing something is easy. Changing your behaviour to reflect that knowledge is very hard. How many of us watched that video, understood its meaning and yet still woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and saw only the faults in our looks?

Katiedot said: Knowing something is easy. Changing your behaviour to reflect that knowledge is very hard. How many of us watched that video, understood its meaning and yet still woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and saw only the faults in our looks?

Honestly I did.

I think we all do, the minis.

but I think it was important
to say
how differently ppl see us

Wow theminis! Thank you for that video. Having a really hard day and was beating up on myself and then I saw your video. It made me cry but it was a good cry. And, it made me decide to look in the mirror each morning and find something good to say about myself. You are wonderful theminis!

Owww Americans, always overemotional. They are just selling DOVE !
Anyway this is way funnier: LINK

Now this is funny! The DOVE video using men!!!! George is in it too!!!!!!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA

loool!

If You Saw Dove's Latest Ad Campaign, You Need To Read This Response
By Jazz Brice

When Dove's latest ad for their real beauty campaign went viral a few days back, we were humbled and moved, like many others. And we stand by that. The video seeks to show women that they are their own worst critics, that "you are more beautiful than you think." It's a lesson we could all do well to absorb in this culture that constantly critiques and nitpicks our bodies. But around the same time, something else went viral — a response post by Jazz Brice on her Tumblr, Jazzy Little Drops. Since she wrote it, the blog has gotten hundreds of thousands of views.

You can read the post below, republished in an abbreviated version with Ms. Brice's permission. It's a thoughtful, careful piece that, while celebrating the video's positive message, also encourages the viewer to think a little deeper and look a little more closely. We agree with everything she has to say (though we would point out that many of Dove's campaigns have been very diverse in terms of age, race, and size, in a way that doesn't feel cheap or like tokenism, which is why we didn't fault them for the blonde-haired, blue-eyed women used here in our orignal post). Check out what Jazz has to say, and let us know if you're on board, too. Everything past this point is her words, republished with Brice's permission.


So this video started going around my Facebook today, with about a dozen of my female friends sharing the link with comments like, “Everyone needs to see this”, and “All girls should watch this,” and “This made me cry.” And I’m not trying to shame those girls! I definitely understand why they would do so. And I don’t want to be a killjoy. But as I clicked the link and started watching the video, I started to feel a slight sense of discomfort. I couldn’t put my finger on why that was, exactly, but it continued throughout the whole thing. After watching the video several more times, I have some thoughts…

First off, I will acknowledge the positives in the video. The team at Dove makes a valid point: most of us are our own harshest critics. Most women probably are more beautiful than they think. This serves as a reminder that we shouldn’t be as hard on ourselves as most of us often are, and it’s uplifting to remember that others are more prone to look past the “flaws” that we perceive in ourselves and to see beauty. The fact that it’s reminding young women to see the beauty in themselves is a good thing, and I want to celebrate that.

When it comes to the diversity of the main participants: all four are Caucasian, three are blonde with blue eyes, all are thin, and all are young (the oldest appears to be 40). The majority of the non-featured participants are thin, young white women as well. We see in the video that at least three black women were in fact drawn for the project. Two are briefly shown describing themselves in a negative light. Out of 6:36 minutes of footage, people of color are onscreen for less than 10 seconds.

Let’s look at which descriptors the editors chose to include. When the participants described themselves, these were some of the things that were implied as negatives: Fat, rounder face, freckles, fatter, 40— starting to get crows feet, moles, scars...Whereas some of the implied positive descriptors used by others were: Thin face, nice thin chin, nice eyes that lit up when she spoke and were very expressive (my actual favorite), short and cute nose, her face was fairly thin (this was said twice), and very nice blue eyes. I don’t know if anyone else is picking up on this, but it kinda seems to be enforcing our very narrow cultural perception of “beauty”: young, light-skinned, thin.

Why is this so important? Why did girls feel like something was missing from that quote in its original form? Why are so many females I know having such a strong reaction to the sketches video, being moved to the point of tears? Because the message that we constantly receive is that girls are not valuable without beauty.

Brave, strong, smart? Not enough. You have to be beautiful. And “beautiful” means something very specific, and very physical. Essentially every movie and TV show and commercial shows us that, right? It doesn’t matter what other merits a woman posses, if she is not conventionally attractive, she is essentially worthless (go watch Miss Representation for more thoughts on this). And my primary problem with this Dove ad is that it’s not really challenging the message...It doesn’t really tell us that the definition of beauty is broader than we have been trained to think it is, and it doesn’t really tell us that fitting inside that definition isn’t the most important thing. It doesn’t really push back against the constant objectification of women. All it’s really saying is that you’re actually not quite as far off from the narrow definition as you might think that you are (if you look like the featured women, I guess).

And actually, it almost seems to remind us how vital it is to know that we fit society’s standard of attractiveness. At the end of the experiment, one of the featured participants shares what I find to be the most disturbing quote in the video and what Dove seems to think is the moral of the story as she reflects upon what she’s learned, and how problematic it is that she hasn’t been acknowledging her physical beauty: "It’s troubling,” she says, as uplifting music swells in the background. “I should be more grateful of my natural beauty. It impacts the choices and the friends we make, the jobs we go out for, they way we treat our children, it impacts everything. It couldn’t be more critical to your happiness.”

Did you hear that, ladies? How beautiful you are affects everything — from your personal relationships to your career. It could not be more critical to your happiness! And while it could be argued that the woman was actually talking about how you feel about yourself or something, it is clearly edited to suggest that the “it” is beauty. I know we’ve been told it thousands upon thousands of times before, but I hope you heard that, girls: your physical, superficial beauty is the most significant part of who you are, and the most important determining factor in your life. And now I want you to hear this: that is a lie.

What you look like should not affect the choices that you make. It should certainly not affect the friends you make—the friends that wouldn’t want to be in relationship with you if you did not meet a certain physical standard are not the friends that you want to have. Go out for jobs that you want, that you’re passionate about. Don’t let how good looking you feel like you are affect the way way that you treat your children. And certainly do not make how well you feel you align with the strict and narrow “standard” that the beauty industry and media push be critical to your happiness, because you will always be miserable. You will always feel like you fall short, because those standards are designed to keep you constantly pressured into buying things like make up and diet food and moisturizer to reach an unattainable goal. Don’t let your happiness be dependent on something so fickle and cruel and trivial. You should feel beautiful, and Dove was right about one thing: You are more beautiful than you know. But please, please hear me: You are so, so much more than beautiful.

Link


Link to the full piece on the writer's blog

The comments on the YouTube page where this is posted were varied.

But what really struck me was how many negative comments there were. It just got me to thinking - Are there really that many people out there whose lives seem to revolve around being negative and only pointing out the negative?

Yes, Dove's main purpose is to sell soap. But they are also making quite a point with this and I do agree we often are much too critical of ourselves. Maybe we should give ourselves a break and be kinder to ourselves also.

Thanks for posting that, Lorna. I had some hesitations about this because at the end of the day, it's a promotion by a company that's trying to sell us something.

I still think their message about how women under estimate their own beauty is a good one. I love what Jazz Brice says though: there's more important things than that. So true.

Here's what I got from the Dove video, that the objective description given by the aquaintance to the artist was a reflection of the inner beauty of the person they were describing.
Words often fail to convey what is fully experienced. The describer, keeping to the medium used - that of a physical description - gave details based on the interpretation of what they saw. The person was more beautiful because that's how they were perceived by the other person.
For me, at least, the Dove commercial only reinforced that a woman's beauty is definitely NOT skin deep. We look at ourselves in terms of comparison with media induced standards of physical beauty, while others who meet us experience our entire being - spirit, soul and body, and depending on our inner light or lack thereof, we project a whole picture, good or bad.
It reminds me of theminis' account of the totally together woman she interacted with at her child's school. Outward appearances were initially of a well kept, attractive woman. But after interaction, it became apparent the woman was ugly and wretched and if theminis were to detail to an artist the finer points of her facial construction, probably the resultant picture wouldn't portray a stunning beauty. Just my take on this.
And I agree with the one subject's statement about how all choices are affected by self perception only in this way - that a negative self image does impact our choices, from childhood on up. Volumes of psych books have been written substantiating this fact. I'm not saying it should, only that it does.
Oh, and the video made me cry, too. I think the spirit of it was meant as a positive message, affirming a woman's self worth.

Well I can tell you I feel fine about my looks until I take a trip up to Hollywood or Beverly Hills then I feel really, really fat and unattractive.

It's like all the pretty people decided to congregate in one place! If you're feeling bad about yourself don't take a gander up to the Century City Mall or Rodeo Drive - you will feel worse!!

But it's true - we often don't see ourselves as others see us.

What I might see as someone staring at me and wondering what's wrong - is there tissue on my shoe? Do these pants make me look fat? And then I realize that maybe they liked my hair or the outfit I was wearing.

Too often we think of the interest of others in us as a negative when in fact they might be thinking something totally different.

Very well said!!!!!!

I agree - Lakin and Lorna as usual your posts are a pleasure to read....

Lakin you are right - beyond the surface that lady at school definitely had no substance.

Talking of faces, this is very interesting.
How lighting affects a face in filming or photos.


http://m.wimp.com/facechanges/

Late to watching the men's version of the video but I just laughed my ass off!