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"Kill Your Idols" never rang so true.
We here at Chicagoist, despite all evidence to the contrary, are sniveling little Fan Grrrls when it comes to some members of the local media. After all, without them where would we be? So it came as a shock—right up there with finding out that there is no Santa Claus—when we read the Sun-Times recently to find that not one, not two, but three of their staff members took issue with the Dove ad campaign, or rather, the fact that the campaign has the nerve to use women who aren't the traditionally thin embodiment of what's considered attractive enough to shill a useless beauty product ...
... and that these women were offending the clearly delicate constitutions of these men: Lucio Guerrero, Bill Zwecker and Richard Roeper.
Excuse us, but what the fuck gentlemen? Did a woman with a little junk in her trunk break your hearts? What the hell is it to you if a company uses women who have a tummy to sell their product in their underwear? It isn't that Chicagoist thinks we should each subscribe to some carbon-copied ideal of what is considered beautiful—what melts your butter is what melts your butter, after all.
But that's not what this is about. This is about your use of the words "unsettling" and "disturbing" followed by other choice terms such as "chunky." This is about you three excusing yourselves for your ignorance with some lazy argument centering on you just being "a man."
So let's take this writer-by-writer, shall we?
Lucio (whose comments show up in the 2nd item, unattributed online, because whomever is running the Web over at the S-T still thinks its 1997 and can't develop a site worth shit), you’re a sad, little man. “Ads should be about the beautiful people?” Advertising isn’t pornography, dude. We know it’s a little hard to tell sometimes but it isn’t. And if you think it’s “disturbing” to see a normal looking woman posing in an ad, just imagine what it might be like for a woman to see ads that reduce her gender to panting whores at the mere whiff of deodorant.
Then again, you’re a staff writer. We've been "staff writers" too and we know how that goes. It's tough being The Bitch and it's tempting when someone gives you the chance to bust open the First Person and not get a little drunk with power. Maybe your boss TOLD you to write a piece that made you sound like a 22-year-old kid heading to $.25 draft night. If that's the case, mission accomplished. And since you need that paycheck to pay for this month’s copy of Juggs or Leg Show or whatever other fucking magazine has warped your mind, you had to do it. Fine.
You, Richard Roeper, have no excuse.
Rich, we feel betrayed. We love you. You’re the guy we look to when we need someone to cut through the bullshit. You give out an annual GOOF (Gloriously Overexposed Overhyped Fool) award purposely to stick it to those who take advantage of the media’s desire for the fake and the glossy. But given carte blanche with your column, you use it to make a plea for "more fantasy babes." It's hypocrtical, at best. And if what we've all heard about you is true, your whole “confirmed bachelor” shtick is starting to seem less and less like a choice you made than one that was made for you.
Nothing is sexier than a guy approaching middle age who still clings onto the notion that a man with a little bread in his pocket and some expensive hair gel can still have his way with the ladies. This is pretty big talk for a dude who will always be known as "The Person Who Replaced Siskel."
And by the way: the word “gals?” It’s time to let that one go. You’re not Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati so it’s time to stop talking like him.
And Zwecker? Join the fray when you're not ripping off celebrity headlines from every gossip rag on the East Coast, huh? You're consistently a day late and a dollar short with each and every column and it's as embarrassing to read as what you said at your "blog."
Chicagoist isn't taking a political, fat-acceptance stance here. There is no "real" woman and we take just as much issue with the notion that the models typically seen in advertisments are fair game for our collective self-loathing as a society that has bought into the idea that a woman is only attractive once someone deems her worthy of a national ad campaign.
Our problem is the idea that a paper, even a rag like the Sun-Times, feels the need to take a stance at all. That we need to constantly beleaguer the point of beauty and what it's supposed to mean. That their minds are so shockingly narrow and driven by hormones that they've missed the point of the campaign completely.
We've found it a little odd that Dove is hawking "firming lotion" using women proud to be anything but firm. Just the same, sign Chicagoist up for some. We'll fucking hand that shit out at the next Happy Hour. In the meantime, we want these three airbrushed, strapped in corsets, wearing control trop from now on.
We just can't read a newspaper with such flabby men writing articles.
Thanks Scott!!
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...what I found really gross about the whole ST "article" is how they painted as a clear delineation between men & women's tastes. There was no male voice to counter those aforementioned meatheads' barfing. All the women interviewed for the article gave a positive, all the men gave it a negative. WTF ST? As a man, I like those ads.
Me too, Christian.
Singrid, Stacy...if you're ever in town...
i love them...but i'm disappointed to say that i see them, and i still gawk. i still find them shocking every time i see them. i still go: holy shit. that woman is big. and then i look again, and i go NO SHE ISN'T. she's actually really fucking normal. she's just not supa supa ridiculously i will never never never be that fucking thin.
that's what makes me sad. that i'm going... is that woman big? overweight? fat?
and then i'm like: god. i've been so warped. sad.
Me three. Man o man, is Bill Zwecker asking for a little critical assesment or what? Although I gotta say, based on "the manboy who replaced Siskel"'s previous articles, I can't say I'm surprised by his comments. He's always seemed like someone who doesn't really like woman (not to be confused with the concept of being gay).
My husband was ten shades of pissed off that they made it out that it was a man vs. woman thing. He HATED what they had to say.
personally i can't believe that people are getting worked up about:
a) an ad campagin
b) some shitty columnists at a shitty paper's reaction to said campaign.
guys, the sun times is a total joke (though they do break the occassional chicago corruption story) to begin with, and "columnists" should be assumed to be morons generally speaking. there are only a handful in the country that know their head from their ass.
second, why in the hell would people be worked up defending an ad campaign. don't you realize their choice to use "big" women, and these are hardly hippos we're talking about, was all about building sympathy with a certain portion of the female population. and you're playing right into their hands.
if you think dove gives a fuck about "real beauty" any more than i give a fuck about dove's real beauty campaign, i've got a bridge i'd like to sell you.
Me four. Knockin' me out with those American thighs.
kind of reminds me of an article i saw a while back re: fat dudes in sitcoms dating hot ladies. see: king of queens, that awful jim belushi show, drew carey (though i do love drew carey), etc.
i wonder if any of these three "gentlemen" have a problem with slovenly beer-drinkin' men such as those being the lead character in prime-time broadcast network sitcoms dating/married to young, thin, attractive women.
and not looking at broadcast tv - tony soprano! at least nate & brenda on 6FU are both equally hott.
I think it was those kids from apprentice who came up with this ad campaign right? S.A. is right on, anybody who talks about this or writes about it, or thinks about it, has just sold another ten bottles of skin firming lotions from Dove.
Am I "playing right into Dove's hands" by eyeballing a "real" beauty's curves every morning? Sure.
But I wanna spread the news, that if it feels this good bein' used, Dove can keep on using me..(high-hat)...til they use me up.
Our nation's standard of beauty is pathetic. These women are GORGEOUS and I love looking at them when I exit the train every morning. I don't care what Dove is selling - it's absolutely joy-inducing refreshing to see normal women in ad campaigns. Hooray for it!
baaaaah. baaaah.
look out flock. dove's coming down to your pasture with sheers in hand.
Wow, up until now, no one's ever exposed me to the insidious evils of advertising! Here I thought they had only my personal interests in mind. Thanks for opening our eyes, SA!
I like the ads, too... I actually didn't notice them until my wife pointed them out. And you know what, I think it's a damn shame that using pictures of actual, average women in an ad is garners so much attention is a really sad commentary on our society. I thought they were all still quite pretty. So what the fuss?
Heh. Joel, you're cracking me up.
Those chicks look hot. They really do.
As for the 3 zoolander amigos, they hardly represent your average guy. One is incapable of having any relationship last, one is in the closet (allegedly) and the other is a.....not sure, never heard of him.
I like the Ads- chub worthy, indeed.
the ads were developed here in chicago, by the way, at ogilvy and mather.
i did a bit of custom typography for it a few years ago when it was still in development, and i still think it's one of the best campaigns going.
in response to the guy above who wonders if dove really does care about real beauty: yeah, they actually do. there was a HUGE amount of research done on the ad campaign that was kept readily available at the agency. the research contained numbers like the percentage of women who'd consdered themselves anorexic at one point or another.
the data was taken into account for sure.
suit 1: these girls will eat this campaign up, no pun intended. especially when we pretend we're doing it to fight anorexia!
suit 2: don't you think it's cynical of us to use the very problem of female self-image we're claiming to rail against to sell people beauty products they don't need?
suit 1: huh?
suit 2: i mean we've done all this research on women's insecurities and eating disorders and so on to sell them products that are designed to be used by women who aren't comfortable enough with themselves to go out with skin firming lotion on.
suit 1: get the fuck out of my office. oh and annette?
Annette (over the intercom): Yes sir?
suit 1: please escort this man out of the building. and by the by, lay off the donuts. you're looking a little chunky in that skirt today.
Annette: Yes sir.
DOVE: Singlehandedly ending anorexia in america by putting ordinary women in advertisements!
Who here has said Dove's motives are 100% pure for doing this, or even that this is some incredibly ground-breaking campaign? No one. Hell, the writer even calls it a "useless beauty product" right in the piece. SA, of all people in this thread, seems to be the one buying into the cynical idea that everyone's too dumb/sheep-like to see that this is indeed advertising. All anyone's said is that it is indeed nice to see "real women" in a beauty product advertisement, which is what everyone ackowledges it is, and that it's ridiculous for media types to be disgusted by it.
and i'm saying that every ounce of breath used to talk about advertising is a victory for the people who are turning this country, and the world, into a mess of over-entertained, under-educated consumers whose sole fuction in life is to accumulate and discuss products.
i just can't believe that people are trying to act like this means anything at all. if they thought they'd sell better using crackwhores, it'd be "dove: goes great with a rock!" if they thought they could sell their worthless products using a giant pile of dookie it'd be "dove: it's the shit."
to congratulate them on successfully targeting their demographic belies your intelligence. their actions aren't good any more than some dumbass columnists cracking stupid jokes about it is bad.
I'll admit to being shocked that they used real women - good for them. Let the Sun Times reporters keep their fake women that they ogle at strip clubs as the real women they want. It only proves their shallowness.
But what do I know - I'm just a girl.
RE: Fat dudes in sitcoms with hot ladies.
Pretty unrealistic sure but mainly because on those shows they aren't portrayed as "Well to do". I've seen plenty of pudgy, frumpy rich dudes with hot ladies.
i always thought roeper was gay.
Again, that's an awfully cynical view of humanity...most people (admittedly not all) take advertising (and hell, most culture/society) with a grain of salt. People are not as "undereducated" as you're condescending to. Nobody here has put Dove on a pedestal, in fact, the ad campaign itself is pretty irrelevant to what I understood the post's intent to be: the fact that some of the bigger talking heads in town seem to still carry around cro-mag frat boy ideas about what's "acceptable" with women's bodies in the media.
I mean, if you want to go on solely reading Adbusters and crummy homemade anarchist zines while washing yourself with lye soap you made yourself in your basement, go ahead, rage against the machine man, but things in mainstream society aren't as bleak as you're painting them. It's just a fucking soap commercial.
Wait, there's no Santa Claus?
I'm not sure which Chicagoist insecurity is more obvious and entertaining- the regular "We're as cool and important as NYC and LA!" or "Just because i'm fat doesn't mean i'm not beautiful!"
i don't read anti-commercial magazines that cost 30 bucks a copy and are printed on high gloss paper. adbusters is the biggest crock of shit of all. i don't use lye soap or believe in anarchy. i'm a pretty normal guy all things considered. i like baseball, booze, and have nothing against creature comforts.
that doesn't mean i don't get sick to my stomach when people talk about ad campaigns. i don't give a fuck if you buy dove soap. go with god. but for the love of god, can't people find anything more interesting to talk about that the response in one of the most pathetic excuses for a newspaper in the country to a stupid, cloying ad campaign?
is there some best-troll-ever award you're going for here?
ouch brook l. ouch. you want my screen name?
i post here regularly, pk. but thanks for the zinger.
Looks like my response to Bill Zwecker really got to him:
http://cbs2chicago.com/video/?id=14267@wbbm.dayport.com
I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying, I just gotta wonder why it's bothering you so much...it's a post on a blog that deals mostly in trifles, which is what this is. I don't think it's an issue that's obscuring Rove or Roberts or Iraq or London in the public's consciousness.
obviously not. but i've been hearing so many people around town blabbing about this stupid fucking ad campaign for so long it's making my brain melt.
you've got to respect the folks at dove for creating a campaign that has done exactly what they wanted it to do. and you have to be a little bit saddened that we're so easily drawn in.
i just see, across the board, a real drop in people's ability to think critically. and all these silly "you go girls" and "it's about times" are as asinine as paying for the right to serve as some fashion guru's bill board. we're all guilty, myself included.
i just think that in a city like chicago there are plenty of interesting trifles that don't revolve around ad campaigns.
and for the record, the fact that this debate is getting coverage on network news (see above) kind of proves my point. guess that's one less story on real issues CBS has to do. maybe they'll get lucky and a cat will get stuck in a tree.
ok. i'll stop now.
I hear a flower bed was ravaged!
OK, like I said, I think we mostly agree but we're just going in parallel lines here...it doesn't make me a sheep and it doesn't make you an Adbusters reader (sorry about that low blow). I respectfully bow out before this reaches 70-some comments.
Evils of advertising and all that aside, am I the only one that doesn't quite see these chicks bodies as "average"? Sure shape-wise they don't conform to what we typically get in print, tv, film, but the actual physical condition these chicks are in is not entirely average. They all look fairly fit which I don't think is exactly common. Am I wrong?
Brook, Chicagoist isn't fat. Just big-boned. And lacking firming cream.
Brenda, way to stick it to Zwecker.
Josh, actually I think you make a really accurate point and it's one a lot of people are making. I believe I heard this morning that these women wore something from a size 6 to 12. What is average tends to vary, but I think it's size 14.
At any rate, contrary to what Zwecker believes, being overweight or of larger girth, for lack of better phrasing, doesn't mean you're not in shape or not fit.
Great post. Would be best ever, but you went a little easy on Zwecker -- Let me give you a little help: Bald, pudgy, bags under eyes...
SA - you are apparently more caught up in this campaign than anyone.
Brenda - way to go getting recognized on the news.
all the men who commented on this blog in favor of the ad - way to speak up and make us women feel good. you seem to really relate. xoxo
as for the columnists, what jerks. imagine how annoying it would be if you had to watch tv and see ads where guys all look like ken dolls walking around. i think that would give you eating disorders for sure. i am an "average" sized girl and i find the campaign quite refreshing.
oh, gotta go - i'm running out to buy my dove firming lotion!
Channel 5 did a better job in their morning Water cooler buzz. They mentioned the largest woman was a size 10. that's barely an average sized woman. think if they put in a size 22 woman.
In response to SA- We are going to be bombarded with advertising regardless, right? There's no changing it. Why not, have a little appreciation for a minor positive gesture on behalf of the blood sucking scoundrels who peddle the cures to in adequacy? I mean...this debate has gotten needlessly over blown...but why not tip your cap and acknowledged that these ads are more positive than, say, the ads for Axe Body Spray. It's a minor concession on their behalf, but they're gonna hock shit anyway...
Great post. Would be best ever, but you went a little easy on Zwecker -- Let me give you a little help: Bald, pudgy, bags under eyes...
and was so moved by such criticisms that he felt the need to be photographed on a treadmill. proving that he had been on a treadmill, um, once. it's pretty clear how stupid the channel thinks its audience is. this is one of the major reasons i consistently ignore chicago's local media. they're an embarrassment to the population.
Hey, does anyone know if Richard Roeper or Bill Zwecker have significant women in their lives?
Um, Bill Zwecker is gay. He used to be the partner of architect, Jeff Case; and has been with Tom Gorman for years. They appear regularly at public events.
Bill, however, was once married to an heiress of the Bunn coffee fortune. He once referred, on TV, to being married as "been there, done that." Maybe it was his experience as a gay man being married that he is referring to when he looks at women in their unmentionables -- regardless of their body shape.
Thank you, Thank you, for your shots at Roeper. He's such a smug little bastard!
Re: Zwecker... I suppose the only reason ads with supermodels are bearable to him is that they look, by and large, androgynous. If he squints real hard they probably look like tall skinny boys.
coldchili - no way the largest woman on there is only a size 10... no way.
but i agree, with the average size being a 12 (last i heard), having a size 16 woman on there would be far more appropriate in showing diversity.
Thank you for this--you are so tight on the money. And by the way, I love those Dove ads.
Chicagoist: "Chicagoist isn't taking a political, fat-acceptance stance here."
It'd be nice if ya did.
In any case, yes, the largest woman is a size 10 and the average American woman is between a 14 and a 16. And in any case, Richard Roeper is a schmuck.
Wow. I've been abroad for a few weeks now, but randomly decided to check out the goings on in sweet home Chicago, and I'm both pleased and horrified that I did. What pigs! I used to find Roeper fairly attractive, but alas, no more.
I personally think the ads are fantastic, but like some of the articles said, many men I know really find them repulsive. As said in some of the comments, our standards of beauty are really quite jaded, and actually quite hypocritical. I used to be one of those skinny, no breasts, no hip model types (and also anorexic to boot), and I'm now in the "average" weight catergory, with some damn good curves. I get considerably more attention from men now than I did when a twig, so I'm always miffed by many men's attitudes to models.
More kudos to Dove though. They have great ads, and they're the talk of the town(s).