A previous version of this blog was originally posted at tallanna.com.
Naked and un-airbrushed Jennifer Hawkins on the cover of Australian Marie Claire
In 2009, a light bulb turned on. (I sure hope it was a CFL.) Someone in mainstream media — new or old, internationally or nationally — an editor, an assistant, maybe it was a PR rep, realized that “Oh hey! Not everyone is a size 2, huh? All the other ‘beautiful’ people in this industry deserve a chance.”
Dove was way ahead of the game with their Campaign for Real Beauty (launched in 2004). But last I heard, Dove doesn’t drive home magazine sales. Sexy things do. And naked sexy things will sell even more magazines.
And suddenly, we embraced the body — naked (or nearly so) and often un-airbrushed — while we also further embraced the plus-sized.
A couple months before that, model Natalia Vodianova bared all on the cover of British Vogue’s June 2009 Body Issue, an issue that vowed to look at how women — yes, even women thinner and more famous than you — felt about their bodies and how they, too, obsessively watch their weight and wished their butts were perkier. (But wait, if even the “perfect” feel insecure, is there hope left for the rest of us?)
If all bodies are beautiful, shouldn’t we focus equally on the thin and not so thin? The short and tall? The curvy and boxy? Despite the valiant efforts, we can’t assume that occasionally swapping out rail-thin models for those with some meat on their bones will, on its own, make 2010 the year the fashion, beauty and advertising industries suddenly changed their minds.
These women — underweight or slightly overweight — are still models. The images we digest are the results of teams of makeup artists, hairstylists, wardrobe assistants, lighting specialists and creative photographers that none of us “real” people have at our disposal.
Fashion spreads, despite the model and her size, are still perpetuating parts of a beauty myth — the glowing, perfect skin, the undimpled thighs — and the message that you are not good enough the way you are. (And that products have all the answers!)
Designers’ samples are still size 4 … or smaller. Runway models are still hired as emaciated hangers that catch your eye and on which designers can hang their art.
Shedding light on the fact that different body types exist — sure, it’s a step in the right direction. But for maximum impact, to make the change that communicates my body and my self are awesome just the way they are, we have to be able to prove that a different message and image will make the industries more money than what they’re making now.
What sells the most — whether it’s putting women down or lifting women up — will eventually win in the end.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks in the world of airbrushed images.
Kelly Clarkson’s obviously tweaked and airbrushed body on the August cover of Self sparked controversy and even provoked Self editor Lucy Danziger to speak openly about the magazine’s airbushing techniques. Danziger, who admitted to digitally shaving off her own unwanted weight in pictures from her first marathon, defended the practice, saying the Self staff altered Clarkson’s photos “to make her look her personal best” while also calling the photo the “truest we ever put on a newsstand.”
In other airbrushing news, some British politicians are fighting to ban digitally airbrushed images altogether after a recent ad of supermodel Twiggy, complete with flawless, wrinkleless skin, was compared to recent “everyday” photos of the aged supermodel. The politicians in support of the ban realize young girls are under pressure to live up to unattainable images they see on billboards and magazines.
Twiggy, next to her ultra-modified image
Perhaps it’s unrealistic to think a magazine editor who alters images of the momentous occasions in her own life won’t tweak the flaws in others. Maybe it’s unrealistic to think an entire nation can ban airbrushed images. But I’m just glad these media practices are getting press.
The more we know about digitally slimmed-down hips, flawless skin, and computerized toned bodies, the more we can resist their influence. Knowledge is power, so spread the news, whether it’s about that magazine cover in the grocery store check-out line or that billboard looming over Times Square—remind people that airbrushing probably contributed to that image.
Do you think airbrushed images can be limited? What would our world be like if magazines like Self couldn’t touch a photo after it was taken? What do you think about Kelly Clarkson’s cover shot, and how do you resist being influenced by unrealistic, Photoshopped images?
According to a press release [PDF] issued yesterday, Gisele is the new face, or rather, body, of London Fog.
Yes, these photos are very provocative and a bit ridiculous, considering the product she is modeling (I know I go out in the cold and rain like that all the time!).
But something else about the campaign struck me as discussion-worthy: Gisele is pregnant, but you would never guess by looking at these ultra-Photoshopped ads. Does London Fog think that pregnancy is unattractive and something to hide?
I found the press release comments regarding her pregnancy a bit strange:
Dari Marder, Chief Marketing Officer, London Fog, commented, “Nobody is sexier or more beautiful than Gisele Bündchen in nothing but a London Fog trench coat, even with her visible baby bump.
Because nothing is more gross than seeing a supermodel carrying her baby? Why couldn’t it be “especially with her visible baby bump”?
Marder added,“Although Gisele was photographed while pregnant, most of the shots have been retouched to respect her privacy during this wonderful and personal time in her life.“
I wonder whether the marketers or Gisele wanted to specifically edit out the baby bump to “respect her privacy?” It feels like what they’re really saying is: “the shots have been retouched so we don’t have to show the small amount of unattractive baby weight she’s put on at this early stage of her pregnancy.” I wish the case would have been, “to celebrate this wonderful and personal time in her life, the shots have not been retouched.”
The campaign’s press site features a few behind the scenes photos, as well as some other ads. Here are two to compare:
Behind the scenes photo from Gisele's London Fog shoot
Gisele in another London Fog ad. Can you spot the Photoshopping?
"(Lucky magazine) preferred her over this model, so we went ahead and pieced together a new girl." (click image to watch the video on NYTimes.com)
Jesse Epstein, the filmmaker who made the terrific short documentary “Wet Dreams and False Images,” is back with a video op-ed on the NYTimes.com. In it, she asks whether American magazine editors should be required by law to disclose how much they have retouched images in their magazines. Well, should they?
This guy retouches photos and tells about it in the video.
So why does it even matter whether magazines are showing retouched, fake women?
Here’s why: When the female body is edited beyond recognition (or created) by a photo retoucher, and women and girls see that as the ideal, chaos (and oh, self-harm) ensues for those women and girls. Examples:
cosmetic surgery carrying huge health risks (including death)
over-exercise (or “exercise bulimia”)
unhealthy, risky dieting
disordered eating behaviors (that may or may not mean a person has an eating disorder)
eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia (which, by the way, can cause death)
general, all-consuming obsession with appearance that takes our attention away from truly important parts of our lives
Know what I’m saying? Check out the video and let us know what you think. – Jennifer
By now, we’re used to hearing that the ads we see every day are somehow digitally altered. Unfortunately, that’s not always our first reaction to the barrage of taut thighs and doe eyes. Kudos to a Berlin culture jammer for explicitly (and creatively!) reminding us of the Photoshopping of subway billboards. This person has been adding stickers of Photoshop windows to the original ads to demonstrate that we are looking at the product of hours of retouching. Check out some examples here.
So what do you make of it? Would seeing this on your morning commute make you stop and think? Personally, I think it’s a great idea, and a good way of interrupting the images we tend to simply accept.
Given an advertisement and a blind eye from the authorities, what would you do?
Lest we think that the images we see in ads are the gospel truth, here comes the blog Photoshop Disasters, featuring the most egregious blunders in digital manipulation. It features the so-called flawless retouches that accidentally defy the laws of physics and/or human anatomy. Not only is this blog absolutely hilarious, it serves as a reminder of the extent to which every ad we see is edited.
My heart goes out to Ms. Summer. However, you will see much worse on the site: extra hands, people with eight-pack abs but no bellybuttons, even my favorite here (may be NSFW). It’s interesting to note that, although PsD is a site that is open to all types of ads, photos of Frankenstein women dominate the blog. I definitely recommend visiting this site as an affirmation that, no, no one actually looks like that.
[Update 5/9/08: An article in AdAge today reports on a statement from Dove and the retoucher mentioned in the New Yorker article discussed below. See updates throughout this item. -J.B.]
[The Dove ads: Lots of retouching? Really? Did you have to break our hearts?] [Update: Phew -- turns out there may not have been much retouching after all.]
Ah, Photoshop retouching, how you pain us, how you confuse us all. Reading a very amazing (and very long) article in the New Yorker (May 12, 2008 issue) today, I learned about the techniques and life of master photo retoucher Pascal Dangin. I encourage About-Face visitors to take the time to read the entire article, either online or in the magazine itself.
My rose-colored glasses were cracked by this statement about his work on the Dove campaigns. From the article:
I [the article's author] mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual “real women” in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. “Do you know how much retouching was on that?” he asked. “But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.”
Retouchers, subjected to endless epistemological debates — are they simple conduits for social expectations of beauty, or shapers of such? — often resort to a don’t-shoot-the-messenger defense of their craft, familiar to repo guys and bail bondsmen. When I asked Dangin if the steroidal advantage that retouching gives to celebrities was unfair to ordinary people, he admitted that he was complicit in perpetuating unrealistic images of the human body, but said, “I’m just giving the supply to the demand.” (Fashion advertisements are not public-service announcements.)
Of course they had some retouching done — but a LOT of retouching? Wait a minute. Aren’t they supposed to be “real” women?
[Update: Dangin says he did not work on the "women in their undergarments" ad, said, "In my experienced opinion, based upon what I have seen, it does not appear that the women had been retouched."
Turns out that he did work on the Dove Pro-Age ads, which were photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Per the AdAge article mentioned above:
In her statement, provided by Unilever, Ms. Leibovitz said, "Let's be perfectly clear -- Pascal does all kinds of work ... and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching, and there was not."]
In the article, Dangin comes across as an artist, but he’s still manipulating the public image. Then there are tons of other photo retouchers out there who, at the urging of their advertising and magazine clients, shave off too much hip, remove too much bulge, and create a Frankenstein’s monster. Case in point:
[Some bad image manipulation.]
The resulting image can have one of two effects: Girls, boys, women, and men can see the image and 1) perceive it as real, assuming that it is the way a beautiful woman should look, or 2) see it as a grotesque, malformed person. We make the choice, and the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty makes the point well: we often can’t tell whether an image is retouched. (See the irony here?) Will we continue to believe our eyes and try to get ever more “perfect”?
I don’t believe that photographers should never use Photoshop on their photos — everyone wants a pimple removed in their family picture for posterity or their MySpace or Facebook page — but completely changing a body to within a centimeter of its former self? And selling us a literally unattainable form of beauty we are told we must fit into? That’s where I draw the line.
