New Dove Campaign Asks Whether Selfies Define Beauty
Can a selfie define one's sense of beauty?
That is the question beauty product maker Dove set out to answer in a documentary short film that made its debut Monday at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
"Selfie" follows a group of teenage girls from Massachusetts and their mothers who were asked to take selfies of the features of themselves they disliked the most. The mother-daughter duos then attend an event where their self-portraits are blown up and posted in a "#BeautyIs selfie photo gallery."
Dove's 'Real Beauty' Sketches Change Women's Image of Themselves
The goal of the seven-minute film, according to Dove, is for the women to redefine their own beauty and see that insecurity often lies beneath the personal snapshots.
"The thing that I hide when I take my pictures is how big my hair looks," one teenage girl says in the film.
"I want my mom to know she's beautiful and that she doesn't have to change for anyone," says another.
"Selfie" marks the 10 th anniversary of Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty," which included last year's viral ad in which an FBI-trained forensic sketch artist drew a woman as she described herself, and then drew her as a total stranger described her, resulting in dramatic differences.
Dove says its own research found that 62 percent of women feel they are responsible for influencing their own definition of beauty and that 55 percent of women believe social media plays a larger role in influencing the beauty conversation than traditional media.
Tracey Clark, an author and blogger at Babble.com, says she made it a priority to watch "Selfie," both for herself and her two daughters.
"I really want my girls to know that in every phase of their lives, they are beautiful for who they are," Clark told ABC News. "And it's important for me to internalize that for myself."