If you had a shower gel that turned curvy black women into skinny white ladies, it would probably be the latest offering from Dove. The ad for the Dove VisibleCare Creme Body Wash is under heavy fire on claims that it’s unintentionally racist and offensive.The ad in question, which you can also see attached to this article, shows three women in their bath towels, smiling for the camera. They’ve been using Dove and, understandably, have every reason in the world to be happy.
As with most promo products for Dove, this one too doesn’t use size 0 models but real-life women, which is precisely what makes Dove products so popular across the world.
All three women (a black curvy one, a Latina and a white one, the thinnest of the bunch) stand in front of two large shots of close-ups of patches skin, reading “Before” and “After.”
Incidentally, the black woman is right in front of the “Before” shot, while the white one stands in front of “After,” which could suggest that one transformed herself into the other, as the
Daily Mail also notes.
Many have taken to the Internet to voice their concerns that Dove is being racist with the latest ad, and to suggest that it should be pulled and replaced with a new one.
“Dove body wash turns black women into Latino women, into white women. This is so stupid, I’m thinking it’s got to be a fake Photoshop ad. But it doesn’t look like it,” one blogger writes, as cited by the Mail.
“Bye-bye black skin, hello white skin! (Scrub hard!) Can this ad possibly be real?” another commenter asks.
“Some people think it is! If real, this could be the most unintentionally(?) racist skin care product ad in... about ten months,” says another.
Dove, on the other hand, insists that saying the ad is racist is a gross exaggeration – and an obvious oversight of the fact that the “Before” and “After” captions refer to how smooth and silky the skin is after using the Body Wash.
“All three women are intended to demonstrate the ‘after’ product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience,” a rep for the beauty giant says in a statement to the aforementioned media outlet.
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