turn around, stick it out

Nike likes big butts and it cannot lie.

Salon.com did a story today about this ad campaign but I had already seen it in this month's Glamour (to which my sister gave me a subscription, and I have to say it's the coolest women's magazine I've read). In terms of body acceptance, Nike's new campaign is sort of better and sort of worse than Dove's "Real Women."

On the one hand, you don't have to hate yourself to buy athletic clothes. But Dove's "Real Women" campaign is selling cellulite cream. A negative, body-shame based product if ever there was one, which to me totally undercuts the message of the ad.

On the other hand, Dove's "Real Women" do look like real women with natural breasts, soft arms and even the occasional belly. Nike's "big butt," "thunder thighs" etc show a different but equally difficult beauty ideal: extremely muscular rather than extremely thin.

But still I can't complain about the Nike campaign. Because damn, that's a nice ass.

[ETA: The ads on the nikewomen.com site show fairly normal looking women, but the print ads are all fitness models. I wonder if the web ads are also on tv? If so then this is the best beauty campaign ever.]