Stuart Dove Ideology

Female ideologies within Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty.’
Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ attempts to challenge the customary, dominant conventions and ideologies of women’s beauty in today’s culture and society. Throughout this campaign, Dove aimed to celebrate ‘natural physical variation’ amongst women, and intended to help women become more confident in their own bodies. Stuart Hall (1981) defines ideology as the ‘images, concepts, and premises’ that supply the basis from which we ‘represent, interpret, and make sense’ of certain characteristics in social life. Hall believes ideologies consist of specific, deliberate concepts, which are then constructed into a distinct pattern; therefore ideologies are altered and transformed when
articulated differently. Mass media outlets are hugely significant in the production, reproduction, and alteration of dominant ideologies; it provides a perfect platform on which ideologies can change and progress. Instead of using the conventional, archetypal ‘size-zero’ model, this campaign used a range of older women, larger women, women of various different races, and also featured women without makeup. This campaign consciously represents the different scales of beauty for women, and presents the idea that these women can represent ‘real’ beauty, as opposed to the current ideologies of popular models today. Esposito (2009) describes the general conception of beauty in today’s culture as a woman having to be ‘white, thin, upper-class.’ This narrow conception of beauty is evident in the majority of adverts currently circulating in the media. Dove’s campaign therefore, as Stuart Hall would say, is ‘breaking the chain’ of these social norms, and not conforming to the ‘fashionable’ views of society. In terms of aesthetics, this ‘white, thin, upper class’ type of model is frequently used in the media to promote a particular product or campaign. Through this repetition, the general public’s perception of beauty gradually mutates from their personal preferences, into this perception repeatedly presented to them by the mass media. French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1971) believed that ‘Ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects.’ This then reinstates the view that the mass media have categorised this idea of beauty, and presented the identity of female beauty as ‘white, thin, upper class’, and therefore the general public interpellates this information and thus subject themselves to this dominant ideology.
Woman, therefore generally try to conform to these social constructs presented by the mass media, and believe that real beauty only comes in the form of that presented in advertisements. This slightly totalitarian tactic used by the mass media is almost a form of propaganda, exploiting the public through presenting ideologies that require women to buy their product if they wish to be ‘truly beautiful.’ This capitalism is used by the media as a means of masking and distorting the perception of beauty and strengthening power relations through the creation of ‘false consciousness’, which was proposed by Karl Marx in 1867, who believed that social relations within capitalism are actually a ‘mystification of the market.’ Therefore this false consciousness confuses alienated groups, who then conform to these proposed ideologies, for example, the ideology of
beauty. The fact that Dove needed to actually create a campaign in which women outside the social norms can also be beautiful, strongly demonstrates the power that the mass media possesses and its monumental influence on the general public, this reflects the Marxist superstructure theory. In the Marxist economic base and superstructure model of society, the base represents the relation and modes of production, and the superstructure denotes the dominant ideologies. The Marxist superstructure presents a clear device that confirms this idea of the exploitation of the general population. The structure illustrates the idea of the bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat by shifting their predisposed individual ideologies, for example beauty, through mediums taken from the superstructure, for example, mass media. This general, slightly distorted view of beauty then unconsciously becomes the social norm, and through devious product placement, the proletariat then becomes intrinsically obliged to buy these products, to fit this underlying, generic mould that has been constructed by the manipulative bourgeoisie. This almost artificial culture created by the bourgeoisie becomes the general view, causing a paradigm shift in modern culture and beliefs. Barker (2011) explained that culture is ideological in the sense that it is ‘expressive of social relations of class power’ and that culture ‘naturalises the social order as an inevitable fact’, therefore obscuring the ‘underlying relations of exploitation.’ This is clearly demonstrated through the way beauty is perceived and how this perception has changed over time. Throughout the 1950/60’s, Marylin Monroe, who was at the height of her powers, epitomised beauty and was admired by women across the globe, and has even been branded as the ‘Sexiest woman of all time.’ However, Monroe was predominantly renowned for her wonderful ‘curves.’ One famous quote reads ‘Before the glorification of “skinny” there was something called “sexy.”’ This general consensus and perception has gradually changed as time has progressed into the late 20th century and into the early 21st century. This clearly demonstrates the authority and dominance the bourgeoisie has over the proletariat and modern culture as an entirety. Another famous Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, believed that hegemony was also massively influential in the production of new ideologies in modern society. Gramsci (1971) stated that the majority of ideologies were heavily derived on the consent of the majority ‘expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion – newspapers and associations.’ This again supports the Marxist superstructure of the bourgeoisie, however, Gramsci suggests that these groups of bourgeoisie actually form provisional alliances or a ‘temporary settlement’ to solidify and expand their campaigns, again further exploiting the proletariat with the bourgeoisie becoming even more dominant. One example of this is Dove’s partnership with the National Football League (NFL). Dove’s launched this campaign by purchasing a 30-second advertising spot in SuperBowl XL costing a staggering $2.5million. Dove formed this fleeting partnership and combined two enormous franchises to endorse their latest campaign, and to widen their audience to over 111 million viewers worldwide. Dove used hegemony to broaden their customer range and again shows a clear use of the bourgeoisie using money to gain power and to make the proletariat unconsciously aware of their campaign and its intentions. Althusser also proposed the ideas of Repressive State Apparatus (RSA’s) and Ideological State Apparatus (ISA’s) and their role in the production of contemporary ideologies. Whereas the RSA’s, for example, the military, the police, etc, function through violence, and try to impose usually political and religious ideologies through conflict; see ideology as a material existence. The role of the RSA is to essentially provide and secure a political foundation on which the ISA’s can act upon. The ISA’s, for example, education, the church, the mass media, etc, are installed by in the leading capitalist social formation as a consequence of an ideological class struggle against the previous dominant ISA. The bourgeoisie therefore manipulate these ISA’s in an attempt to get the proletariat to buy their products and buy into their campaigns. However, Dove’s ‘Campaign for Real Beauty’ attempts to pioneer a minor mutiny, and to stand up to the current ideologies and beliefs shaped by the bourgeoisie, and to revert back to the beliefs of the 1950’s and 1960’s, and celebrate women of all shapes, sizes and races and to find the beauty in every woman.
However, even though this campaign is constructed on good intentions, through doing this, Dove are still manipulating the ISA’s and using the mass media to exploit proletariat into buying their products and supporting their campaign. Through utilising cunning adjectives like ‘concerned’ and verbs like ‘help’ throughout their campaign, Dove are cannily using exploitation techniques by giving the impression that they are trying to help the public, as if they are doing something for you. However, these are just glorified propaganda techniques and still the bourgeoisie are manipulating the proletariat into buying their
product. Advertisements, as well as other media practices, play an enormous role in the distribution composition; transformation and reproduction of these ideologies, and massively influence how we think about individuals or certain groups of people. By acknowledging these sometimes incredibly subtle ideologies, we can alter our portrayals of things like beauty, gender and race to develop an ideology that better suits individuals.