Dove/Axe

I absolutely love the new Dove ad. I feel it was well-made the message is powerful . However, I don't believe these socially responsible ads would continue if it wasn't what women wanted to hear or the sales dropped significantly. Societies standard of beauty, plastic surgery, botox and being thin are all hot topics right now. Attacking these things and not using thin, half naked women sets them apart from the competition and that angle has worked, so far, for Dove. Axe is also owned by Unilever and the "Bom Chicka Wah Wah" video (very stupid) on the Axe website was the exact opposite because it is reaching out to a male audience. It's all about what sells and men want to believe that they can get attractive, young, thin and sexually available women if they wear Axe (regardless of their own appearance). Whatever.

Enough is Enough

I am glad that there are black people, other than myself, that are outraged by the negative images and language in rap videos. For a long time I defended hip hop because I come from an affluent black family, I understood it was not reality, I separated my self from the "other" black people and didn't take the words seriously. The Don Imus comments were a big deal because I feel it made members of the black community look around and say "this is a problem and we need to do something about it". I realized that even though there are different values, levels of education, political beliefs and levels of income among black people in the US, we are all lumped into one group. To everyone else we are all the same. That bothers me so I gave it up (unless it was positive and free of the N-word). I don't agree with censorship but something needs to be done. Rap holds a lot of power. I just wish it would be used to uplift minority groups instead of tearing them down. I don't believe rap/hip hop alone causes sexual behavior among teens because it didn't for me. I feel parenting, environment, morals, social influence and other issues factor into the ultimate decision to be sexually active. But, I think it would be foolish of me to say it doesn't contribute.