Because culture says that women never look good enough.

[butterfly]

I'm mostly putting this here as a personal reminder of how Western (specifically American, in this case) society works to destroy female self-image.

At the Iwanex Studio website, under their portfolio section, you can see some of the retouched photos of celebrities that they've done... when you scroll over the image, you can see what the picture looked like before it was photoshopped. See Cameron Diaz's breasts reshaped and her arms and legs made smaller! See freckles disappear! See Julia Stiles' breasts and hips grow! Watch as women are given uniform 'hourglass' figures!

They fuck with some guys' appearances, too, but not to the same extent.

Comments

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I think they see this type of photography as art, and just like a portrait painting, you can well, make things look nicer.

I don't think Queen Elizabeth the 1st looked as great as paintings made her out to be either, at least now we can see the truth, those women's magazines are just as obsessed at taking unflattering photos and plastering them on the covers as well. I distinctly recall a Mischa Barton in swimwear with obvious cellulite on one cover not so long ago, of course it's now Mischa Barton looking like a skeleton, so it varies.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure classifying it as art makes it any less damaging to young women's sense of self-value. When nicer means 'physically impossible for the majority of people', it can cause a lot of pain.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I'm not disagreeing entirely, but there is a demand for this, and where there is demand there is supply. *shrug*

I have no answers.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely agree that there's demand. Just as there was demand in England for tightly-laced corsets that deformed the torso and inhibited breathing, just as there was demand for extreme footbinding in some parts of Chinese culture that led to three-inch long 'lotus feet' (which are, um, terrifying). What women are told they need to look like is often very damaging to them.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

I think most of them look better without the work. At least they look like individuals.

[supacat.livejournal.com]

I was just going to write exactly that. Without the work, most of the women look beautiful in interesting, unique ways. Cate Blanchett looks gorgeous, her skin looks much prettier and more delicate to my eye when you can see its freckles and its fineness. Cameron Diaz ditto looks gorgeous without the work, she has this aggressive feline quality. WITH the retouching, they all just look . . . the same. Blah, blah, blah.

[auntie-angora.livejournal.com]

Me too. Most of them looked just fine without the retouching, but Cate Blanchett and Cameron Diaz looked GREAT beforehand. I'm not sure where I draw the line on airbrushing, personally, but sometimes I find it comforting to look at pictures of celebrities that haven't been airbrushed, just to reassure myself that they aren't a race of androids or something.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

sometimes I find it comforting to look at pictures of celebrities that haven't been airbrushed, just to reassure myself that they aren't a race of androids or something.

Hee!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. It makes them all (these interesting, gorgeous women) look more bland and cookie-cutter.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you.

[shinyopals.livejournal.com]

It's funny, because when you just see the retouched version alone, they look perfectly normal, or at least, what you expect to see. But then the comparison between the two? WOW.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I know! The comparison can be so surprising.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I really think that some of the truth in advertising laws should be revised to discourage this kind of thing. It'll never happen (FREEEEE SPEEEECH, the ladymags will holler! Free speech to insist that no one even has a ribcage!) but I remember going to my doctor when I was a teenager asking if I should go to a dermatologist, because in pictures none of the women had pores...

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I know! They really, really don't have pores in magazines. Or complete ribcages. And they often have 'floating head' syndrome, as well.

[solitude-82.livejournal.com]

my friend Ivan runs that site and he's probably the least sexist, sweetest and one of the best people I know....

i don't see any difference in photoshopping this type of photography and grabbing a photograph of a random object or a scenery shot and photoshopping to to make it look better

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Because a piece of scenery doesn't have senses or a mind. It can't understand that it's been judged as inadequate by society. Women can and they do, in vast numbers.

It's not your friend Ivan's fault -- as I said, it's society as a whole that sends the message. He probably wouldn't be successful if he didn't do such a complete job. He works within the system and venturing outside the system is much less secure. And, these days especially, jobs can be very hard to walk away from.

[deepdarkness.livejournal.com]

That is really...creepy. In some cases, I can understand why. I mean, I wouldn't want my very red pimples in a magazine, so a little touch-up is excusable. But with some of them it's very much a Night-and-Day change. Like Beyonce. They completely messed around with her body shape! I reminds me of that Showcase promo poster of Billie Piper. No matter how toned you are, if your body in in a V-shape, your stomach is not going to be flat. Hers very much is, and it's annoying. And in some of those photos, I prefer the before the touch-up shot! Freckles and lines make you look more human, instead of a plastic shop dummy.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Exactly. They look like shop dummies and not real people.

[killingfrost87.livejournal.com]

Which promo pic? ::is curious::

[deepdarkness.livejournal.com]

That one where she's sitting in a martini glass. Um...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Diary_of_a_Call_Girl here's the Wikipedia page. It's that one. If you look closely, her stomach is totally flat. And the entire picture is airbrushed to within an inch of its life on top of that. In some of the Showtime pictures, it barely looks like her at all.

[killingfrost87.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some of them were ridiculous, its a shame that this is what its come to

[kb91.livejournal.com]

This is really fascinating. I've seen magazine articles that talk about retouching and show before and after pics, but this really hits home, the way you can move your mouse on and off each pic.

I've talked to my 13 year old about this stuff, but I'm going to show her this website. It's a perfect example of why you can't compare yourself to the photos in magazines -- even models don't look like models in real life!

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

It's a perfect example of why you can't compare yourself to the photos in magazines -- even models don't look like models in real life!

Exactly! Even the hottest actress around aren't hot enough for the magazines. It really shows how extreme our culture is about the 'perfection' of women's bodies (and how impossible it is).

[shardsofblu.livejournal.com]

It's amazing and creepy as hell at the same time.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I know! Impressive and yet horrifying.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I love how the people defending this are claiming that "it's just making the pictures look nicer," with no questioning of why, in this culture, we've allowed "nicer" to equal "scary fake mannequin zombie women." :P

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

That's definitely one of the most poisonous parts of the whole thing.

Look: they aren't even trying any more (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/shakespeares_sister/klumgqbig.jpg) to pretend that they don't want mannequins.