In this advertisement for Dove, it shows a small film/GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) of an African American women removing their tops to reveal a white woman. Through this video/advertisement, many people took offense to what they potentially represented. Representing a cleanser and how well it works on different types of skin, social media took it as offense : claiming that the African American woman was to represent dirt while the revealing of the Caucasian woman was to represent purity and to be generally clean.
Personally, I don't think we should pay so much attention to this. Obviously, what Dove did was ignorant, but it was an honest mistake and they did not think this advertisement through. People claiming that they do not want to buy Dove products after seeing this advertisement is a bit of a stretch ; what they've done was a mistake and not the smartest thing that they've done, but that does not mean they have to go out of business because of this one advertisement. It was not their intent for the advertisement to be seen as racist and I think we should give them credit for that. It was not their intent, but the way they have portrayed their product was wrong - hopefully we can come to that conclusion.
The most of hatred people hold towards this advertisement is dramatic. Yes, what they've decided to do was ignorant, but that does not mean they are problematic. For them to be problematic is for the company to continue acting upon racist advertisements. If the company had a problem with different cultures, they wouldn't have taken down the ad and sincerely apologized for it. May I also say, that we have worse things to talk about. This is an UNINTENTIONAL racist advertisement, they do not mean it. It's not worth our time to talk about something that has already realized it's mistakes. Forgiveness is a virtue we seem to forget during a time of accepting others, especially on social media platforms. People will call out others for something so tiny and not worth their time - there are better things to do. There is a difference between spreading awareness and stretching the idea of something that has already been talked about. They've realized what they've done wrong ; let them be and move on from it. Continuing to speak about it will not only make it unnecessary, but annoying too.
This being said, people chose to completely ignore the rest of the video. After revealing the white Caucasian woman, she took off her shirt to reveal a Hispanic woman. If the video was so racist, would they put another person of colour after a white privileged woman? People have gotten to sensitive to everything and anything they see, often times we forget to look at the full picture.
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