Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Losing Faith

CLICK to enlarge the horror, the horror

Here is an interesting question: Has Photoshop destroyed our standards of beauty? The feisty ladies over at Jezebel caused quite a stir Monday after they paid $10,000 to an anonymous source so they could post the before-and-after Photoshop cover shots of country singer Faith Hill. [Click the above image to enlarge the horror, the horror.] It seems the editors of Redbook thought the already ridiculously pretty 39-year-old mother of three should be impossibly pretty instead. A little digital trickery here, a lot of digital wizardry there and voilà: A smoking hottie totally divorced from any and all reality. Ahhh, just how I like ’em. Let’s call this for what it is: Sheer. Utter. Madness. The beauty myth really is just that -- a myth. When even the most beautiful among us aren’t beautiful enough, there is something very wrong with our perception of beauty. Let us all throw up our hands, throw away our glossy magazines promising “Thinner Thighs in 30 Days!“ and throw down with all those who make a living by making us feel bad about ourselves because we don’t look like the women staring back at us from glossy covers. Because you know what, even those women don’t look like the women on those covers. And that, my friends, is seriously fucked up.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

amen, sister. amen.

Anonymous said...

Faith has a truly genuine smile in the original photograph; the retouched one looks fake and insincere. Sad comment. I've already given up these magazines, but unfortunately, the images are still everywhere. I teach middle school, and use every opportunity I can to get kids, especially girls, to be themselves, not a plastic image that they see in the media. It's not easy.

Anonymous said...

Excellent, articulate post.
I saw Jenny McCarthy talk about this once on TV in the most intelligent and self-mocking manner. I thought it was great and she went way up in my estimation.

Tricia said...

I don't buy those magazines as well and try to have honest media discussions with my daughter. She is 5 and it amazes me how much she has already been enveloped by the media machine.
Wonderful commercial, but that is marketing in itself. Dove is owned by Unilever which also owns slim fast and many other companies that make the commercials we are rallying againist.

Gargy said...

All I am going to say is Faith Hill looks so much better in the ORIGINAL photos....before the air brushing and what ever else they did to it.....FYI: You ain't telling ME anything new.....I knew about this before I hit puberty!!

Anonymous said...

In the original, Faith has an arm. In the retouched, she looks like she's been starved for months.

I was never the target audience of these mags, and never will be. I feel bad for kids, though, who don't quite understand the subterfuge involved.

Anonymous said...

Dorothy, this is such and important message to get out - the media and ad industry take reality and twist it and twist it and twist it and we are all blowing in the wind.

Anonymous said...

plush, I'd like to know more about dove's connection to Unilever. Can you post any sources to follow up? thanks.

Sally said...

Excellent post. I completely agree on how our perception is so distorted. ! I believe it is in our hands to NOT follow their idea of beauty. Stop buying the magazines. I did it many years ago, but my decision is not affecting them. Oh well...

Tricia said...

Go to http://www.unilever.com/ and scroll their brands and one of them is dove. It is also on the bottom of dove's website.

Anonymous said...

Thanks plush

Vale said...

The arm was creepy, but creepier still? taking away the little "laugh lines" around the eyes made her smile look fake. not cool.