I just got back from Chicago. Beautiful city. Plenty of public art and a fun water taxi you can ride all day for only $12. Interesting time to be in the city though. It must have been the debut week of the new Dove campaign, Real Women have Curves.
The first billboard I saw flying into town was the Dove advertisement. Then, I continued to see the ad plastered all over the city. Billboards, buses, bus stops, you name it. To accompany the visual, the commentary on the TV and radio regarding this ad was overwhelming. I have never heard the word cellulite as many times as the week I spent in Chicago.
I know you’ve seen the ad. Six women in white bras and panties having a great time together. What is so funny, I wonder? What am I missing out on? Not everyone has those thoughts. One commentator from the Chicago Sun Times stated, “The only time I want to see a thigh that big is in a bucket with bread crumbs on it.” Other views, mainly from female reporters, commented that the women are too normal. That the models aren’t big enough. Is our society completely screwed up or what?
Well, I can assure you, none of that banter is going to ruin the party the real Dove women are having high above the city streets.
From what I can see, all the ladies have reasonably attractive faces and do appear to be cellulite-free and relatively firm. Oh, that is what the new Dove product is for, by the way, it’s a firming cream. One might miss that in the barrage of undergarments and frolic .
I would say my figure errs more to the side of the Dove clan rather than… say… the Victoria’s Secret posse. Though, I swear, I have never shopped at a Lane Bryant. But, I was wondering… How do the skinny, flat-chested, figureless, women of the world feel about Dove telling them they are not real women? If only real women have curves, that suggests skinny women are not real women. I can feel the tension brewing amongst the A-cupped-size-2 crowd as I type! Will they rebel with a billboard of their own? Having even more fun? What slogan will they come up with?
So, I bet you are wondering if I bought the new Dove lotion? I must admit, I did. But c’mon… who doesn’t want to have that much fun in your skivvies with a group of full-figured, jovial, real women? When I got home from Chicago I pulled out the coupon I had clipped months earlier for $1 off and rushed out and bought it.
I don’t know that I feel any firmer or that cellulite is washing away, but the lotion smells nice… and God forbid anyone should think Betty is not a real woman!
We all want to feel beautiful — fat or thin, short or tall, dark, or fair. Why can’t we just let people be? Why can’t we let people be happy and beautiful from inside? I just read a forum asking if guys just liked skinny girls. Why even ask? Guys will like what they have to like. We girls have to first like ourselves. My husband, my family, my friends love me not because I am pretty, or skinny. They love me because I am a fighter, a survivor. We are much more then our face or our body. We are people with our unique individuality.
I am not someone who will win a beauty pageant; but then, I am not someone who will win a noble prize for literature either…
With or without curves, I am still special…. because I am me! In love with my skinny self.