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.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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...

[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

[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.

[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!

[shardsofblu.livejournal.com]

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

[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