Since I have a little time this morning, and several Ypulse Guest Posts to share, I'm going to post a couple today and a couple on Thursday to fill in "the blanks" while I'm traveling. First up is a post from Casey Lewis. I first met Casey when she was a senior in high school and one of two teen bloggers on my first SXSW panel a couple of years ago. She is a longtime blogger and journalism student. When her head seems to be buried in college textbooks, you can probably find an issue of Vogue slipped into the binding.

'The Hills' Are Alive...With Self Esteem?

Smack dab in the middle of a recent episode of MTV's The Hills, a curious commercial flashed on the screen. Instead of a brief 10-second advertisement, however, this was a three-minute reality show-inspired film about... self-esteem. Ironic, considering "Hills" star Heidi Montag's name (and, ahem, body) has made headlines in every celeb tabloid for the past year. Also ironic: there has been an obvious correlation between the show's success and the casts' dress sizes: As the success rises, dress sizes steadily decrease.

Starring Alicia Keys and a handful of unknown actresses, the series follows a petite girl as she struggles through a yoga class, awkwardly twisting her bod into pretzels while the rest of the class expertly flows into downward dogs. Her friends express doubt about her new exercise regimen, and then she eventually confesses to working out only because of her unhappiness about her skinny "12-year-old body" while in-demand models look so fabulously athletic and "curvy." It is certainly an interesting angle on the body esteem issue (accepting one's twiggy figure in a world of curvy, strong women), but it is also rather... inaccurate. When was the last time you heard a thin girl express discontent with her own litheness and feel jealousy over supermodels' incredible "athletic" figures?

Created to promote Dove's new fragrance-driven collection, "Fresh Takes" follows 20-something besties through the tough insecurities that young women face. In addition to typical scripted dialogue, each character has an inner voice that reveals her true feelings about a variety of issues. It's a similar concept to Lauren Conrad's frequent voiceovers on "The Hills," except with emotion.

Because "Hills" viewers are typically girls in their teens and twenties, "Fresh Takes" couldn't possibly be played during a better show, on a better channel, or at a better time. But how effective will it be?

The question is whether the audience will be able to identify with Dove's characters. What will viewers think of the self-consciously skinny girl who looks up to those "curvy and athletic" models? And furthermore, just who are these models and where can we find them? They certainly weren't the mannequins prancing down the Sass & Bide runway, as seen on "The Hills."

Photo of Casey by Magda Sakaan/Missourian.

Posted by anastasia