Hilarious Dove Parody Asks Women to Start With the Monster in the Mirror

Ladies, you know you secretly see yourself as a gorilla unless a company tells you otherwise.

Apr 22, 2014·

Culture and education editor Liz Dwyer has written about race, parenting, and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.

Before Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign, did America’s women understand that despite wrinkles, belly pudge, and stubbly underarms, what matters most is how gorgeous they are on the inside? Over the past decade, the company has said ladies are beautiful just as we are—all while encouraging us to improve our appearance by purchasing its body wash, hair and skin care products, and deodorant. A new parody campaign brilliantly takes Dove’s pop-psychology, faux–female empowerment advertising shtick to task.

In the “Mirror Test” commercial for a campaign called “True Beauty,” four female comedians from Above Average—Lauren Adams, Emily Altman, Langan Kingsley, and Livia Scott—show us what happens when real women see their reflections and are forced to confront all their, ahem, flaws.

As you can see in the above video, when each of the women looks in the “mirror,” she’s shocked to see a gorilla’s reflection. True to Dove’s advertising style, the white lab coat–wearing psychologist character tells the women, “That was a gorilla man in the mirror and not your face.” The psychologist then goes on to reassure the ladies, “See, you’re not a hideous monster.”

The satirical video mocks Dove’s much derided “Patches” campaign, which launched earlier this month and featured eye roll–worthy footage of women who supposedly felt more beautiful after wearing fake beauty patches for two weeks.

Challenging distorted, Photoshopped-to-perfection images of women is a noble endeavor. But in case you doubt that “Real Beauty” is not about emptying a woman’s wallet, keep this detail in mind: In other parts of the world, Dove’s parent company, Unilever, rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars from the sale of its skin-lightening cream Fair and Lovely.

Advertisements for Fair and Lovely products tell women of color they’ll get a better job or the man of their dreams if they have whiter skin. But don’t worry, after spending decades tearing down women in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Unilever can always launch another “real beauty” campaign to build them back up.