First a bit of history, CoverGirl is a cosmetic line owned by Procter & Gamble (who you're going to be seeing a lot of on this blog over the next little while.) The main competition to CoverGirl is generally considered to be Maybelline, which is owned by the L'Oreal folks (A brief overview of my makeup kit confirms I have no CoverGirl junk, thank god.)
Let's start with the commercial. Let me say right off the bat, I love Ellen Degeneres. Everyone in the world should feel comfortable enough to dance, dance, dance away without being shy and she does it every day on her show. Mad Props. I was going to use the new commercial she's done for the CoverGirl Simply Ageless makeup as my main point but then I wiki'd CoverGirl and clicked some links and learned some interesting stuff. This is not to bash Ellen in any way, this is a CoverGirl issue, not an Ellen issue. It just so happens she's the one reading the script.
"Inner beauty is important, but not nearly as important as outer beauty."
Wait-whu?
Don't get your knickers in a twist, kids. I'm trained in the art of sarcasm. Unfortunately this didn't really come off in such a way that I thought "Oh hey, Ellen's being funny! She really means outer beauty isn't important at all!" Which, you know, would explain why she's doing a makeup commercial.
It seems to me that CoverGirl is behind on the times. Someone should let them know that Anti-Aging isn't the 'in' thing anymore. Ageism is so huge in our society, god forbid we go through the natural course of life and enjoy it! No, no, we can't show laugh lines, wrinkles, crows feet, whatever you want to call them, because that means we're old. God forbid we get old and.. gasp! eventually die.
But okay, maybe this was just a poor choice on Ellen's part. Maybe CoverGirl is like an ostrich and had it's head in the sand since 2004, thus explaining why they haven't heard of Dove's very popular "Campaign for Real Beauty" and "Pro-Age" products. Personally, I'm a huge supporter of Dove. Not only is their soap a great facial cleanser (believe it or not, it's recommended quite often by doctors) but they seem to be the first cosmetic/beauty related corporation to have realized that "Hey, maybe all these ads are promoting negative views of women. Maybe we need to be rethinking how we sell ourselves." Bravo, Dove, for taking the first step, and shame on you CoverGirl, for not realizing that people don't want to STOP aging, they just want to age properly (which they can do by using the fine products by Dove. How d'you like them product placements?)
So there's my issue with the commercial itself. Time to do a bit of backtracking on CoverGirl. As I stated before, it is an offshoot off Procter & Gamble, who make such fine products as Always, Duracell, TAG, Pampers, Gillette, Bounty and much, much more. I'm torn here whether I could just put Procter & Gamble on the list (see below for my reasons why) or stick with CoverGirl. I think for now I'll stick with just the cosmetics, but I'm going to be paying closer attention to the commercials of the other P&G products. Always is treading a thin line as it is.
Anyways, back to my point. CoverGirl is a sponsor of America's Next Top Anorexic Paperdoll, sorry, I meant Top Model. My bad.
"But Kathleen," you say, "Don't you just have issues with the modelling industry? Aren't you being picky again? Isn't this just a personal vendetta?"
Once more I will remind you, angry readers, that the point of this blog is to be picky. However, I will acknowledge the point. So let's ignore the sponsorship of a wholly unhealthy show that twists the reality surrounding 'real beauty' and examine a few P&G scandals.
For the sake of simplicity, I'm leaving out the P&G Satanic Symbol issue, check out the Wiki article on it for further details. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procter_%26_Gamble#Logo_controversy)
In 2006, PERI (Political Economy Research Institute) released The Toxic 100, a list of the top 100 most toxic corporations according to their Toxic Scores taken in 2002. P&G is there at number 52 (http://www.peri.umass.edu/Toxic-100-Table.265.0.html). Now someone clarify, why would anyone wanting to defy the laws of nature and age backwards or whatever, want to support a corporation that contributes to the current woes of the planet and thus the health of millions or people, thereby effecting the health of peoples skin? Yes, it might be a bit of a long connection, not exactly six small steps, but it's worth questioning isn't it? If we as a society are so concerned about not aging, why support a corporation whose actions will effectively make us look weathered beyond our years?
Up next, animal testing. Feel free to boo and hiss at this point. Now I, for one, have never understood the concept of animal testing. Yes, they test on animals to ensure it is safe for humans, but last time I checked I wasn't a fuzzy bunny, and the time before that I checked, my neighbours rabbit wasn't putting on a layer of eyeshadow and some lipstick for a night on the town. Psst, P&G, I don't know if you've noticed but... humans and animals have slightly different genes. I know what you're thinking, "If we don't test on animals, how will we know it's safe for humans?" How about we test on humans? No? That doesn't float your boat? Then why the hell is it all right for us to test on animals? What gives anyone the right to produce something, be it makeup or perfume, whatever, and test it on animals? Stand behind your product. You think it's safe? Then test it on yourself? No one, absolutely no one, has the right to shove off a product onto some creature; why ask someone or something to make a sacrifice that you yourself are not willing to make? Further more, cutting out the step of testing on animals and instead testing on humans means getting results that the scientists behind the products can actually use immediately. It's like cutting out the middleman on some sort of shady deal.
By cutting out the animal testing and reverting to testing on people a team of scientists would see results they could apply. They'd understand the effect their product would have on people immediately. It would save them from testing on a rabbit, thinking "oh hey the rabbit isn't dying, it must be safe." mass producing only to realize it gives people a rash and forcing a major recall. Production would go faster, allowing for the amount of production time to be cut back. Hey, P&G, I just solved that nasty Toxic problem you have.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not some PETA fanatic, but I can see where they come from on the issues of some animal testing. There's a difference between testing something important (life altering drugs) and something pointless (CoverGirl). The problem is PETA considers the matter to be black and white, you're either for animal testing or against it.
For more on P&G's animal testing click http://www.pandgkills.com/main.html
So I guess my big point with all this P&G stuff is that we as a society don't really realize who we're supporting. I had no idea CoverGirl was a P&G offshoot until I decided to do this post, nor did I realize Always (my brand of choice up till now) was one of their products or anything else I listed. Here we are supporting corporations left, right, and center. Of course we can't help it, we have to buy certain things to survive, but with a bit of extra research we can delve into who we're buying from and we might just find not everything is as peachy keen as we like to believe. Supporting this corporation or that doesn't define who you are, nonetheless who you choose to support can have a huge impact on your life. You may just find that the more you support someone life P&G, the more worse off the planet gets. And trust me, in a few years you're concerns won't be whether you're age-defying or what have you. You'll be glad you lived long enough to age at all.
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