It's one thing to know that the covers of magazines and billboards are heavily staged and photoshopped.
It's another thing to see it before your eyes.
Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild & Tiny Beautiful Things, posted something similar this week, under the appropriated title "a little something to depress the shit out of you." She was right. It depressed me.
I guess I didn't know this was such a phenomenon, but after quickly googling the keywords "photoshop media," image after image of phony photos showed up in my results.
For example, this was actually published. Same model. Both Ralph Lauren ads. One looks like an alien and / or bratzy doll. The other looks like someone blessed with incredible genetics.
(Source: Beauty Redefined)
Although I could go on and on about the negatives, it's refreshing to see Dove making a positive contribution. Its campaign, "Real Beauty Sketches," has been a viral success while also evangelizing positive self esteem and confidence to women.
More companies should be like Dove.
PS - Both of these books are on my reading list from Cheryl:
In my judgement the largest transformations were at the hands of the makeup artist and the hairdresser. Watch it again. From "raw" to "finished" the biggest changes were before the shutter opened.
ReplyDeleteThere is an argument about whether the transformation as a whole is "good", "right", "oppressive", "demeaning" or whatever, however everyone who looks in the mirror and applies makeup or a hair brush is as complicit or more complicit than the photo technician with PS.
Furthermore, this line of argument has started from the moment that the woman walked into the shot. For many the distortion has already gone a long way with diets, cosmetic surgery etc. to conform to "the look". So go ahead and blame photoshop, but have a good hard look at yourself first.