Sometimes a picture is worth one word: Lies
by ClizBiz

“A good retoucher can basically make the person in the picture look better, enhance the way they look. They can do anything. They can open eyes wider, make them brighter, change the shape, contour the face a lot.”

-- Kate Betts, former editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar and a former top fashion editor at Vogue

We live in a world of glossy images, more so now than at any point in history. Slick visuals assault us from all sides – advertising, movies, television, magazines, internet, iPods and now, our phones. The great majority of these images depict the unbelievably beautiful, the incredibly fit and the jaw-droppingly sexy. Inevitably, we mortals marinate in this environment and wonder, 'Why don't we look like that? Furthermore, why doesn't our lover?'

Can we call such manipulated images real? The answer is a resounding “NO!” Many thanks to Jezebel for reigniting this reality with her post on Redbook’s shameful retooling of an already-lovely Faith Hill for their July cover. Taking in the jarring before-after graphics, I could hear the whiney echo of 13-year-old me worrying about her thighs: “Wah! Cosmo says I’m FAT!” I’m pretty sure I could also hear the distant cackle of Dr. Frankenstein, who apparently now works for Hearst Corp.

You don’t need a fancy study (though there are plenty available) to state the obvious: Magazine covers, and their contents, have a resounding impact on how young girls (and some of us old-timers too) look at their own bodies. It was years before I realized that the “Thin Thighs in 30 Days!” mentality only made me feel ugly and out-of-sync. Still does. (I also found that National Geographic and BUST have no such effect.) The damage is costly, especially these days when young girls anxiously shed their girlhood as soon as possible, striving to resemble music video whores.

Even former supermodel, Christie Brinkley notes the resulting tweaks in body image:

“They compare themselves to the girl on the page. And the girl on the page nowadays has, you know, hips this narrow and the tops of their arms are literally this small …When I started modeling, retouching was hardly ever done. It was very expensive … (now it) is getting out of hand.”

No word yet on how Ms. Hill feels about her digital makeover but other celebs aren’t as quiet. Kate Winslet openly criticized British GQ’s cover shot of her when editors reduced the size of her legs by a third. Kate was bravely quoted: “The retouching is excessive. I do not look like that and more importantly, I don’t desire to look like that.”

Then there’s last year’s “slimming” of Katie Couric in the promo photo for her new anchor position. The CBS marketing department easily took 30 pounds off Katie’s waist with a few clicks. (Meanwhile, I’m trying to accomplish this same goal in real life and, dadgum! It is taking much longer.) Couric gamely told the Daily News, "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love." Meanwhile, Jack Marshall, of ethics training and consulting firm Ethics Scoreboard, had his own take on the matter:

"News and entertainment are converging, and we have to decide what code of ethics we are going to follow. In the entertainment business, people wear wigs and...we're used to illusion. But in the news business, it’s very important that...what we're shown in a picture is true. An altered picture is the same as a lie."

Illusions, indeed. About ten years ago, my best friend, Lisa, worked for a Beverly Hills ad firm that created movie posters and video/DVD covers. I called her one day at work and asked her what she was doing. “I’m shaving Selena’s butt,” she replied. Evidently, movie-renters were deemed unready to handle J-Lo’s now world-famous derriere.

Who is perpetuating this idiocy? Are these image-lies being told at the behest of male editors with warped ideas of what grown women must look like? That pat theory is far too easy. Fashion magazines and women’s periodicals are largely run by women who make these decisions.

Indulge me while I bring this all home for a minute. My family recently had a formal portrait taken and I’d worn a lovely flower print blouse with sheer sleeves. Evidently, the final shot – I was told – made it appear that I had tattoos up and down both arms. I thought my new ‘Biker Heather’ image was hilarious but my stepmother paid to have it airbrushed into Something Respectable. Fine.

When I finally got a gander at the photograph, I was stunned. I am, evidently, grossly overweight. (Apparently, I am the last to know since my idiot smiling face appears utterly clueless.) A family member, while looking at the photo, kindly inquired, “So, are you going to try and lose weight then?”

would be less bothered by the photo except now every family member now has a fucking 11x14 print framed and displayed on their living room wall. Meanwhile, I fantasize about breaking into their homes and burning every copy. True confession: “When they airbrushed my arms, couldn’t they have swiped off some around the middle too?” I thought to myself. So now, I am double shamed by this ghastly photo as well as this unhealthy urge to photographically alter my unsightly bulges.

The reality of physical imperfection is usually greeted with all the enthusiasm of an uninvited flatulent guest. It takes someone truly heroic, someone much better than me, to stand up and refuse. Someone like Jamie Lee Curtis.

Four years ago, she approached the editors of More magazine which is geared toward women over 40, said the following: “Let’s take a picture of me in my underwear. No lighting, nothing. Just me. No makeup. No styling. No hair. No clothing. Pretty brutal lighting.” JLC’s lofty goal was simple: “That people would look at it and go like this, ‘Oh, I get it. She’s real. She’s just a person like me.'”

Reader reaction was overwhelming. More Editor Susan Crandell has said, “We got hundreds of letters from women saying ‘Thank You’ and they were saying ‘You look like me’ or ‘I look like you.’”

In the accompanying interview, Curtis – once known for a cinematically perfect form – happily confessed: “I don’t have great thighs. I have a soft, fatty little tummy. I don’t want the unsuspecting 40-year-old women of the world to think that I’ve got it going on. It’s such a fraud.” JLC goes on to blame magazine editors who perpetuate photo retouching, what she called a “digital diet.”

“The fraudulence really has to do with perpetuating something that isn’t real anymore.”

--Jamie Lee Curtis
Actress, Wife, Mother, Real Woman re: photo shoot retouching

What can we do? What we do best, of course. Set the blogosphere on FIRE with this, ladies.

Submitted by ClizBiz (view blog) on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 18:58

Comments

 

photoshop is

a powerful tool...I don't think there are too many professional images out there that aren't untouched in some way...and that's not a closely guarded secret, in fact being able to manipulate photos into something else is quite an art....

on the other hand, there are lots of real images available to people as well...blogging is a great example of that in general...IMO, it's just a new way of doing something that has been done in form or another since photography began

Submitted by nuthinfancy on Wed, 07/25/2007 - 19:01
 

How About a Group Photo?

One hundred and one big leg women(or more)? I'm not kidding. We might have to pour a couple of Yahootinis down a few throats to get the other 99+ BlogHers to cooperate but the Big Leg Women of the Blogsphere need to represent. We can do the waist down thing but we could Technorati up the joint with photos of large and in charge women.

All acts of defiance need is one small step forward.
Gena - Out On The Stoop

Submitted by Gena Haskett on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 19:37
 

It's the 2007 equivalent to "burning bras".

It's the 2007 equivalent to "burning bras".

(don't tell anyone else...but if you get 98 others...you can count me in)

Contributing Editor Catherine Morgan
also at Women 4 Hope and Informed Voters

Submitted by Catherine Morgan on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 21:08
 

Jamie Lee Curtis links

Here are the articles about Jamie Lee Curtis and More Magazine.

From 48 Hours

From More

And one More

---

~Jenn~
Mommy Needs Coffee | Mommybloggers

Submitted by Jennifer Satterwhite on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 20:41
 

Go, Jamie Lee

When I heard Curtis did this, I was in awe. What a brave and generous and classy thing to do.

Kyran, Notes to Self

Submitted by kyranp on Tue, 07/17/2007 - 22:16
 

I agree kyranp

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

Submitted by Lisa Stone on Tue, 07/24/2007 - 01:16
 

The Truth

Gena - I love your idea of a group photo! Um, can I stand in the back? Better yet, I'll take the photo! Seriously, let's discuss some photo-related response to this at the BlogHer Conference.

Better than bra burning since my ladies cannot go a day without their lacy hydraulics.

Jenn - thanks for backing me up with these links!

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Photography
Proprietor, ClizBiz

Submitted by ClizBiz on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 09:19
 

Absolutely - We Need To Represent Our True
Bodies

Montage, collage, in the garage up against the wall. Let's find a place were can do this and then posted it for public recognition.

Let us walk in the steps of Jamie. Say it loud, flabby and proud. Or not as bummed out as I use to be.

I'll get to work on that slogan.

Gena - Out On The Stoop

Submitted by Gena Haskett on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 20:19
 

Czarina

I didn't know this about JLC. I try to avoid most women's magazines. The only one I read is InStyle - they make it relatively easy to focus on the clothes instead of the celebrity wearing the clothes.

The Czar is 40 and hates looking at cover girls. He is the first person to say that the airbrushing and the expected weight of women today is stupid. He prefers Cindy Crawford in her 80s incarnation - the "Glamazon".

I'm lucky that I have someone who can separate reality from fantasy - and that support, I feel, definitely keeps me from obsessing too much about looking like a twelve year old boy at 36.

Stylefool

Submitted by Czarina on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 09:49
 

Photoshopped Faith

I'm embarrassed, because I feel like I should have known. I mean, I knew that they photoshop, and perhaps I even knew mentally to what extent, but that Faith Hill animation where it goes back and forth just broke my heart. I felt like crap about it all day.

It's her arm that really gets me. I regularly look at my arms and think they're fat and feel bad about them. But in the untouched photo, her arm looks just like mine. Like an arm.

Why does society want us to feel like crap about ourselves and starve ourselves? Why is an untouched woman such a horror that she can't grace the cover of a magazine?

Are we all truly so hideous that our very limbs must be cut down? Something is really, really wrong in print publishing and women's magazines. It's totally gross.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess and On The Lot.

Submitted by Liz Rizzo on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 11:36
 

I heart this post.

I heart this post. Especially the way it was pointed out that these are NOT stereotypes that men are perpetuating on women. These publishers ARE women that are making the decisions about who and what goes on the cover (sighs, and goes to read more on gofugyourself.com)
I modeled as a young teen, and as a saggy baggy mom of thirty four, those shots...need to be taken out and shot. Preferably at point blank range with no survivors. As they say in Transformers, Bring The Rain!

Submitted by blueshi on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 13:31
 

Should we propose 'Real Arms' magazine?

Glad we have the Czar to remind us that insecurities are for Everyone! Wheee!

Liz - I know EXACTLY what you mean. I felt sheepish that I had not fully grasped how much retouching is done in these photos. Also, there is something about the (digital) mutilation of the female form that makes me feel like we've worked backward into a world of corsets and bound feet. It is shameful.

Blueshi - LOL! You are not alone - I read the gofug girls every darn day! The writing is just too damn funny.

BlogHer Contributing Editor, Photography
Proprietor, ClizBiz

Submitted by ClizBiz on Wed, 07/18/2007 - 15:54
 

Male Perspective

I see the pressures on females to look a certain way no different than pressures all males face and have faced for years. First and foremost many males have no biological father to mentor them and educate them on what it is to be a man. This is especially true in black males. Therefore, many young boys turn to peers and the media to find out what being a man is. This sort of abandonment is much more common for young boys with fathers then young girls with mothers. Regardless of the role model/mentor, males are typically cultured to be winners. To be competitive. To make the grade and be a success. Just like women are told that without the perky figure and sexuality you will not get a mate, young males are taught that if you do not make bank in your career, win the game (or in Denver the bike race, triathlon, etc), be in the band, etc, you will not be of any use to the opposite sex. The same guys that women rave about being around as adults were the outcasts to many of their male peers during the formative years in HS etc. Just as the pressures on females lead to eating disorders and self image issues, plastic surgery addiction, etc - the pressures on males have consequences:
a. Gambling addiction from uncontrolled competitiveness (see latest NBA ref scandal and Michael Jordan/Charles Barkley tales)
b. Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs and all of the negative consequences of same. The average life expectancy of NFL linemen is mid fifty. There is currently an epidemic of early onset dementia in retired NFL players due to multiple concussions during their careers.
c. Illegal business practices (fraud, tax evasion, etc) in the obsessive pursuit of success – ie money.
d. Infidelities and ruined families in the constant attempt to fit the mold of ideal partner to self-validate.
e. An entire industry (sports medicine orthopedics) that makes a killing off of older males insecurities and the associated injuries that go with it.

So, I don’t think women should feel singled out in this issue. Men have been risking their health, finances, freedom, and families for years in a desperate attempt to impress each other and the opposite sex.

As for the women CEOs who take advantage of women – I consider that relatively predictable as well. As more women move into management of companies I do not anticipate that suddenly corporate America will become kinder, gentler organizations. On the contrary, I think female CEOs will often be as ruthless as their male counterparts. In my industry I have certainly seen that. Many females in power positions are extremely talented and also very user unfriendly – often most hard on their own gender because they do not have to worry about sexual harassment issues like a male boss would and frequently view their women colleagues stereotypically – if a women hasn’t maximized her career opportunities etc and rather focused on her family and only works part time for example – they are viewed as a sell out.

Submitted by HDH on Mon, 07/23/2007 - 19:52