"Dude, are you doing the Dove ad now? That was so April 15th...?" Yes, I realize I missed the meme train, but it's better to be right than part of the debate, especially when there is no debate, this is all a short con inside a 50+ year long con. Remember House Of Games? "It's called a confidence game. Why, because you give me your confidence? No: because I give you mine."
"What's with you and fin-de-Reagan David Mamet?" It's not my fault Dove cast Joe Mantegna as the sketch artist, and anyway if you want to understand the world today, you have to understand how the Dumbest Generation of Narcissists In The History Of The World was educated. See also: 9 1/2 Weeks.
Here's how you run a short con, pay attention:
Everyone likes to know the secrets of the game, and this scene certainly satisfies. Joe Mantagena shows a famous psychiatrist (played, tellingly, by David Mamet's future ex-wife) how a short con is done, how it's improvised, and he makes it look so easy. Really easy, except for the part where you have to connect with a perfect stranger and make them like you. Did you find yourself wondering if you had the skills to pull it off? Better watch it again, sucker.
Quick test for a con: what questions does it not occur to you to ask? While you were memorizing the language and the pacing of the scam, you didn't ask yourself, why didn't Mantegna take that guy's money at the end? Why did he let him off the hook? "He was just doing it as an example." Oh, like when a guy says he'll put in just the tip, "I want to see if it fits"? It's not like the psychiatrist doesn't know he's a thief-- that's why they were there in the first place. So he purposely didn't steal the money to make the psychiatrist feel at ease, feel closer to him. To earn her confidence by first giving her his. She's the mark. The aborted short con is part of an unseen long con.
But the genius of the scene is that while you, the viewer, are criticizing the stilted dialogue or the improbability of the success, "dude, that would never work in real life!" if you search your sclerotic heart you will find that you yourself felt good that Mantegna didn't take that guy's money, that he let him go. It endeared you to Joe, it made you feel more sympathetic to him, like he's an ethical thief, like he's Lawful Neutral. In other words, he's given you his confidence.... which means that the true mark is you.
The gimmick that propels the Dove ad is a comparison between subjectivity and objectivity, though in this case objectivity is defined as however well Mantegna can use a charcoal pencil. Why not just use a photograph?
Because when it comes to beauty, we all know photographs can be manipulated, especially in ads, especially by Dove. So the ad frees you from your cynicism and goes with a new standard of beauty, one that, like yoga or genetics, has been around for a long time AND you know very little about it; it hasn't been over-critiqued, you haven't watched it fail over and over, and thus seems pure, fantastical, true. The artist's sketch. How can anything this lovingly and precisely created not be the real thing? And nothing makes a middle aged neurotic happier than 45 minutes alone in a loft with a good looking man who requires no sexual contact and just wants to listen to you talk about yourself, unless he's also sketching you attentively in natural light. "Can I offer you a Pinot Grigio?" Slow down, Christian, you're making me woozy. There is not enough quantitative easing in the universe to prop up this fantasy, but at $3000000000000 you can't say America's not committed to the attempt.
The mistake in interpreting this ad is in assuming the ad is selling based on the women and their beauty. If that were true, it would be counterproductive: if they are naturally beautiful, if the problem is actually a psychological one, then they certainly don't need any beauty products. A beauty ad operates by creating a gap between you and an ideal: by creating an anxiety that can only be mitigated by the product. But this ad reduces anxiety and avoids cynicism. Therefore, it is not a beauty products ad. It is selling something else. This is why there aren't any products in the ad.
Dove is telling you you don't need to do anything to be beautiful, but it knows full well women must do something to themselves to feel good about themselves, and if they don't need makeup then at least a moisturizing soap. All Dove needs to solidify this is to be recognized as an authority on beauty-- real beauty, not fake, Photoshopped, eyeliner and pushup bras beauty.
