They often say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some say that it is on the inside. I don't know. Remember those Dove ads that referred to the real women? Normal people on billboards, curvaceous ladies in their bra and panties? Brilliant. Then they revealed that YouTube gem of the everyday woman transformed into a supermodel. Some everyday girl made from ordinary to gorgeous in seventy five seconds. She didn't want to be famous. She didn't want the limelight. She was weary about the fame. Then did E!, and NBC news, and entertainment tonight. I also hear that fame is like becoming a vampire, the moment it sinks its teeth in you, you can't stop. I wonder if Dove would hire her now? Has she maintained that innocent, girl next door look. Has her attitude remained as humble as her contrived answers on the network news shows? Perhaps it would be different if it had been a dream of hers, it would be an easier thing to handle. I've dreamt of winning an Oscar since I was a wee lad, so I may be prepared to be in public. Maybe those Dove girls had no such dream. They never thought that thousands would be watching them on the Internet. Now that their fifteen minutes has ticked away, and the creator of those spots became way more important than them, the downfall begins.
Don't get me wrong being famous can be a bitch. I've worked in restaurants where celebs ate with one hand and signed autographs with the other. Where hockey players asked if they could finish eating with their parents before a picture, and a neat line formed, waiting patiently. (Canadians! So polite!) I've talked with major league MVP's, met the Great One, and glad handed the worlds best actors. The most interesting thing about any of them is who they really are. The fact that they could look into a crowd and see people that are star struck, and autograph seekers, but all they want is talk normally. With anybody that I've had the pleasure of meeting, I've left their job off the list of topics to talk about. If they bring it up, fine, but only then. That has created a bond between us. It's easy to hang out with someone who doesn't keep saying, "Wow" with an eerie look in their eye. Sure most of the top stars don't have normal lives, they don't wait for stuff, people bend over backwards for them. Sometimes I don't think that it's their fault. A lot of times it's one of their entourage, "do you know who this is?" It's not the celeb.
Now I'm not saying that there is not a huge group that are absolute assholes. And I've had the pleasure of meeting some of them as well. You'll notice it's not the A-list, even the B, or C list. It those people that you don't know. It's those people that have to remind you of the channel, show and character that they play. And you still don't know who the fuck they are! Or you do, and don't care, and want them to explain it some more. I had a guy once tell me that he was friends with #99 and wanted a seat on the patio. Okay? He showed me his Superbowl ring from the Patriots, and said that he deserved a little special treatment. Okay? He said that he was friends with Wayne and "other" athletes. Okay? Of course I told him that there were no seats still, and I wasn't going to kick someone out so that a guy I'd never heard of, knew some people I'd never met, wanted a prime seat. Secondly, a hockey player, coach, GM, order of Canada recipient is friends with some offensive lineman from New England? Okay. Those fringe celebs hate the world because the world doesn't know enough about them to make fun of them on PerezHilton.com. As if making a good living doing what you love isn't enough. (Excuse me, a tear has fallen on my cheek)
The inspiration to me has always been the people that remain even cooler in person, then on TV. When I was in high school I was an extra in a movie, We're no angels. If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it's because it was terrible. Nevertheless, it starred some real talent. Bobby De Niro, Sean Penn, Demi Moore( she was hot!), John C Reilly and Bruno Kirby. Reilly wasn't a superstar, Kirby hadn't done City Slickers. And they were very nice to a young boy who wanted to learn about the movies. Mr. Penn and Mr. De Niro were even nicer. They were angels. Sean told me about the sound taping inside of a scene, De Niro and I talked about the lake and area where we were filming. They were awesome, and inspiring. Back in '89 they didn't have tabloid magazines, or TMZ.Com, all I knew was people that I had met. I realized that if you didn't treat them like they were better, they were just as normal as you and I. Sean wore too much cologne, De Niro was kinda quiet. Demi Moore was a bitch, but she was new to fame herself. It would be another year before she skyrocketed from Ghost. Who cares, when you're seventeen and Demi Moore is fixing her nylons three feet in front of you, she can act anyway she wants!
That's the difference. We can accept that some people's lives are marred by fame, but they keep low. Then there's Britt! But it's the non-celebs that really fire up my rage. The Kim Kardashians, the Anna Nicoles, the Ashley Simpsons. These aren't real people. They didn't start a career in what they wanted. The became famous, then grasped at everything they could to maintain it. So what about the Dove girls? Did they go back to their jobs proud of who they are? Or did they want to keep grasping at the straws? Do they expect the nicest seat in the restaurant, or are they just some humble human beings? Is it their intention to ride the little bit of fame that they received, or will they go back to the life they had? The great thing about those ads is that you felt that they all had regular lives, that they were just like us. Until after the ad of course, then we hoped that they were still like us.
Don't get me wrong being famous can be a bitch. I've worked in restaurants where celebs ate with one hand and signed autographs with the other. Where hockey players asked if they could finish eating with their parents before a picture, and a neat line formed, waiting patiently. (Canadians! So polite!) I've talked with major league MVP's, met the Great One, and glad handed the worlds best actors. The most interesting thing about any of them is who they really are. The fact that they could look into a crowd and see people that are star struck, and autograph seekers, but all they want is talk normally. With anybody that I've had the pleasure of meeting, I've left their job off the list of topics to talk about. If they bring it up, fine, but only then. That has created a bond between us. It's easy to hang out with someone who doesn't keep saying, "Wow" with an eerie look in their eye. Sure most of the top stars don't have normal lives, they don't wait for stuff, people bend over backwards for them. Sometimes I don't think that it's their fault. A lot of times it's one of their entourage, "do you know who this is?" It's not the celeb.
Now I'm not saying that there is not a huge group that are absolute assholes. And I've had the pleasure of meeting some of them as well. You'll notice it's not the A-list, even the B, or C list. It those people that you don't know. It's those people that have to remind you of the channel, show and character that they play. And you still don't know who the fuck they are! Or you do, and don't care, and want them to explain it some more. I had a guy once tell me that he was friends with #99 and wanted a seat on the patio. Okay? He showed me his Superbowl ring from the Patriots, and said that he deserved a little special treatment. Okay? He said that he was friends with Wayne and "other" athletes. Okay? Of course I told him that there were no seats still, and I wasn't going to kick someone out so that a guy I'd never heard of, knew some people I'd never met, wanted a prime seat. Secondly, a hockey player, coach, GM, order of Canada recipient is friends with some offensive lineman from New England? Okay. Those fringe celebs hate the world because the world doesn't know enough about them to make fun of them on PerezHilton.com. As if making a good living doing what you love isn't enough. (Excuse me, a tear has fallen on my cheek)
The inspiration to me has always been the people that remain even cooler in person, then on TV. When I was in high school I was an extra in a movie, We're no angels. If you are unfamiliar with this movie, it's because it was terrible. Nevertheless, it starred some real talent. Bobby De Niro, Sean Penn, Demi Moore( she was hot!), John C Reilly and Bruno Kirby. Reilly wasn't a superstar, Kirby hadn't done City Slickers. And they were very nice to a young boy who wanted to learn about the movies. Mr. Penn and Mr. De Niro were even nicer. They were angels. Sean told me about the sound taping inside of a scene, De Niro and I talked about the lake and area where we were filming. They were awesome, and inspiring. Back in '89 they didn't have tabloid magazines, or TMZ.Com, all I knew was people that I had met. I realized that if you didn't treat them like they were better, they were just as normal as you and I. Sean wore too much cologne, De Niro was kinda quiet. Demi Moore was a bitch, but she was new to fame herself. It would be another year before she skyrocketed from Ghost. Who cares, when you're seventeen and Demi Moore is fixing her nylons three feet in front of you, she can act anyway she wants!
That's the difference. We can accept that some people's lives are marred by fame, but they keep low. Then there's Britt! But it's the non-celebs that really fire up my rage. The Kim Kardashians, the Anna Nicoles, the Ashley Simpsons. These aren't real people. They didn't start a career in what they wanted. The became famous, then grasped at everything they could to maintain it. So what about the Dove girls? Did they go back to their jobs proud of who they are? Or did they want to keep grasping at the straws? Do they expect the nicest seat in the restaurant, or are they just some humble human beings? Is it their intention to ride the little bit of fame that they received, or will they go back to the life they had? The great thing about those ads is that you felt that they all had regular lives, that they were just like us. Until after the ad of course, then we hoped that they were still like us.
My heart was broken. I threw out my Dove products.(no I didn't) The beauty of evolution, missed a step. Watching that streaming video feed, like a film flip book, we were all amazed. A regular girl to supermodel. The key to that was that it was all fake. The end result was not real. That woman on the billboard wasn't a real person, she was a regular person transformed into something else. But the regular person wasn't real either, was she? She was a manikin. She spoke on TV, but it was rhetoric that fueled the campaign. (that I believe her husband created) Was she speaking from the heart? I mean it was a huge account. Someone probably made a shit load of money off of it. Was it her? Was it the marketing company? We could look at her before picture, and we related to it. My girlfriend felt they were akin. But what if she was rude, mean, inconsiderate, and a smoker. That's not like me. That's unattractive! Has Dove covered that part? Or is that essence of the campaign. Don't believe what you see. Don't believe any of it. From the first photo to the last, it's all phony. It's all an advertisement. And that's the beauty of it. Well done!
1 comment:
My favourite part...a tear has fallen on my cheek.
Brilliant.
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