Jezebel goes after Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches"

One article on the site complains about the commercial's message to women.

Once Again, Jezebel Takes Things Too Far

We've all seen Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" in our news feeds and what not (if you haven't, watch it now), and you'd have to be the biggest monster in the world to say it didn't move you. Because it touches on a real reality; that so many beautiful girls and women all over the world are too self-critical to recognize their beauty and feel good about themselves. But this kind of self-confidence, feel goodery was not enough for some people over at the pro-woman website, Jezebel, where an article was recently posted about the short comings of this campaign.

Before I go any further, let me say that I think Jezebel is a very important forum for discussion of the issues facing women. Many of their articles can be uplifting, eye opening, and intriguing, never afraid to point out the uncomfortable truth. But often times, they can go in a direction that is extreme, idealist, and annoying. Case in point:

The article points out the surface flaws of the commercial, how Dove fails to include women of color promoting a certain beauty ideal only applicable to white, thin, and young women. But most significantly,the article criticizes the commercial for promoting the idea that beauty is an important value.

Now, I agree with most of this; there could have been more women of color and they could have varied the face and body types of the women a bit more. But the fact that this commercial has a negative effect because of its focus on physical beauty? Well, it think that is pure bull sh*t. First off, the point of the campaign was to make women more aware of how self-critical we can be, not to solve all issues of self-perception in one seven-minute deodorant commercial. And its not like people take these things too seriously (again, its a deodorant commercial). But what irks me the most is this idealist perception that women will never value their physical beauty. The reality is, everybody wants to be beautiful and desired. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is human nature. Beauty standards are what define the aesthetics of every culture. After all, beauty is one of the pillars of philosophy. It is only when we apply ideals to our bodies that we set ourselves up for failure. And that is the point of this commercial. Dove is just trying to say, "hey, don't be so hard on yourself."

So can I just watch this ONE Dove commercial and not feel like a failure of a feminist because it made me tear up? Can we just celebrate this ONE thing, Jezebel? No? OK, I guess I have to go return my copy of The Feminine Mystique now.