Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Allen Solly's campaign: Is it bad to be ugly?


"I Hate Ugly" cries out Allen Solly's new promotional slogan. (See the poster attached)

Just noticed it in an e-mail from the company. Was wondering why everybody is hell-bent on proclaiming ugly as bad? These are two different things - being ugly and being bad.

Ugly, by popular understanding - refers to something that is not very appealing to look at, something that is unattractive. The most popular reference being to that of looks (physical beauty). Most common usage being - She is pretty but her sister is ugly.

But again if you pluck the philosophical chord, ask yourself - What is pretty? This is all very subjective. I many find pink as a very pretty colour, somebody else may find it ugly. Right? So ugly or pretty - this classification is based on our social and mental conditioning like preferences, prejudices, experiences, upbringing, beliefs etc.

The big question is SHOULD WE HATE ANYTHING THAT IS UGLY?

If you like blue and may be I just don’t like it, so should I hate blue? Another example - if a person is not very good looking (is ugly so to say), so should we hate that person?

This question is ticking in my mind ever since I've read "I Hate Ugly" campaign.

Don't think we need to hate ugly things, we just need to accept them, if not appreciate them at all. After all, the world isn’t all White and Black, it’s Grey. We need to have ugly things around so that we can value the pretty things. Isn’t it?

- Would you hate an unattractive person (ugly) person simply because he/she isn’t good looking?
- Would you shun ugly things only because you don’t appreciate them in your world.

Please post your thoughts in the 'comments' section.

Share
Share

7 comments:

SA said...

Good one Yojana. I totally agree with you. Your post title is a real good question to answer. Hope people understand it.

Sanjay

harsha said...

After reading the post icannot stop myself appreciating your thoughts.
different prespectives on a single line of words.what a great world this is?
how about a world of alike people,no caste,no colors,no disimilarities,no rich and poors.

Yojana said...

Thanks for putting in so many kind words. Just wanted to put across a thought here. I remember singing a hymn "all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things bright and wonderful ta lord God made them all" in the school assembly. Wish we could just remind ourselves of such sensibilities.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the TV serial "Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin " All great men and women of history were not paragons of beauty either. It is the virtues that count.

Yojana said...

@Anonymous. Thanks, exactly my point.

Anonymous said...

read the whole ad 2 understand....
it doesn't mean u have 2 hate everything ugly.... it means what clothes you dont like on u , u change...

Yojana said...

@ taupaji -
Thanks for the update. However, the posters and the website promoting this particular campaign from Allen Solly do not say so. I check the posters/hoardings and websites many times to reaffirm the campaign claim, but the don't have any such claim that support your inputs.