Abstract
In October 2017 Dove Soap, a company “committed to representing the beauty of diversity,” pulled a three-second ad from Facebook because an accusation of racism went viral. Dove apologized, saying they had “missed the mark” in “thoughtfully representing women of color.” The woman who drew attention to the problematic ad was, in turn, criticized for her actions —accused of being too sensitive, of looking for racism so she could complain about it. Meanwhile we (reporters, viewers, consumers, visual communication professionals) asked repeatedly, “how did this get approved?” In doing so, we lay the problem at Dove’s feet, acting as though this was an isolated incident. I combine formal analysis of both the Facebook ad and the original television ad it was associated with, historical examples of racism and racialization in photography, and the contemporary idea of “hyper-photography” to examine the situation. One implication of my research is that Dove missed the mark in thoughtfully representing diversity. They intended to communicate diversity of skin types yet stripped all aspects of diversity except race from the Facebook ad, creating an ad about race (and “cool” digital technology). Another implication is that cultural blind spots make it easier for white people (the vast majority of those working in advertising and design are white) to think racism only exists when it is overt or violent. We ignore situations in which Black people are denied subjecthood in images, leading to solutions that continue to “miss the mark.”
Presenters
Laura FranzProfessor, Art + Design, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Massachusetts, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Media, Advertising, Viewers, Interpretation, History, Race, Representation
