I’ve written before about the travesty that is airbrushed images. The Ralph Lauren debacle particularly sticks out in my mind.

And apparently “Photoshop” goes way back – about 25 centuries to be exact. Just the other day I read an article in Psychologies about how the ancient Greek artist Zeuxis created an image of Helen of Troy by combining the features of five different models.

The writer referred to this as a “primitive form of Photoshopping,” writing that “our culture has become fixated with an ideal of physical faultlessness so detached from reality that reality itself has begun to look peculiar.”

Yesterday, I read a post on The Cut that defended airbrushing images. The writer, Amanda Fortini, says that our concerns with Photoshopped images are less about self-esteem and the potential harm these images are doing to girls and more – lots more – about knowing that celebrities are just like us: imperfections, and all. And do any of us really believe that they’re real images in the first place?

She writes:

But how many adult women actually take the images in fashion magazines — artificial as they are, feats of makeup and lighting and camera angles, even without retouching — at face value? “Our readers are not idiots,” Christine Leiritz, editor of French Marie Claire, told the New York Times last year, “especially when they see those celebrities who are 50 and look 23.” Most of us who read fashion magazines don’t feel we’re confronting reality when we see a photograph of a grown woman with preteen thighs. (We certainly see enough countervailing tabloid shots to know exactly what celebrity thighs look like.) If such photos enrage us, and often they do, it’s not because they damage our self-esteem, nor — let’s be honest — because we’re constantly fretting, like some earnest psychologist or crusading politician, about the emotional repercussions for adolescent girls. Our interest in altered images is not purely moral; it’s also aesthetic. We believe that a picture should convey, “objectively,” without undue intervention, what the lens originally captured.

She explains that images have always been altered and exaggerated. She points to the pin-up-style illustrations of years past that favored small waists and big breasts.

For much of the last century, models and movie stars in fashion magazines and advertisements were often rendered as drawings or paintings. In The Girl on the Magazine Cover, journalism professor Carolyn Kitch explains that magazines were “dealing in ideals rather than reality,” and the vaguer contours of an illustration “could represent both a specific type of female beauty,” as well as more general “model attributes,” like “youth, innocence, sophistication, modernity, upward mobility,” etc. Of course, illustrations also appealed to their vain subjects, who were usually portrayed as idealized versions of themselves. In the ads of illustrator Gil Elvgren, for example, the women are libidinous fantasies — a busty girl-next-door seductively rides a carousel to sell Coca-Cola; another, for whom busty is an understatement, shills for a Certa mattress.

Fortini suggests that instead of expecting to see reality when we look at magazines or advertising images, we should take them for what they are – fiction – and even celebrate them.

Looking at them, one can’t help wonder why we resist accepting, or even celebrating, a retouched photo for what it is: an open fiction, a candid fantasy. If we could ditch the idea that these images bear any resemblance to reality, viewers might not feel conned or played for fools.

While she says it’s unlikely, she believes that it’d be better if magazines started airbrushing even more.

It would be better, perhaps, if art directors just went all the way, publishing, without apologies, pictures of incarnate Betty Boops or Jessica Rabbits. Too many magazine images nowadays are neither fish nor fowl, neither photographs of integrity nor illustrations of potency. They’re weird in-between creatures, annoying and unsettling.

Her advice for dealing with airbrushing?

Essentially, stop whining, adjust your expectations and become a critical consumer (and help other women cultivate their Sherlock Holms skills, too). She says that we know when images are fake, so we don’t need a disclaimer from the government.

But here’s my take: If we stop being outraged over these pictures, we make it OK. We let the magazines and advertisers off the hook. And I’m not sure that I’m ready to do that.

The other thing about outrage is that it’s working: Some magazines have already responded to our outrage in positive ways. For instance, Essentials, a UK women’s magazine, says it’s going to stop airbrushing and even feature real women on its covers (read the story here).

I’ve also always wondered, if we’re going to Photoshop to such egregious extents, why even have a model? Why even use a celebrity in the magazine in the first place? These are real people.

Many times, I think that airbrushed images just look odd, and I don’t understand why magazines and their Photoshop masters don’t get that. Obviously, you’re using a celebrity or model because of her look. And yet there’s no tentativeness in the airbrushing wand about obliterating that look. I understand zapping a blemish or two, but searing off hips is another avenue I’m not OK with. And, honestly, it just makes no sense to me.

I do agree with Fortini that we like to know that celebs and models are human, too. That they get pimples, have wrinkles and spotty skin. That they’re not smooth and toned all over. I think it’s natural for us to want to know that they’re not super-human. But I’m not sure that this is where the outrage comes from. It might be part of it, but it’s not the whole story.

We definitely should teach our kids – and everyone we know – about being critical consumers of the media. And sharpen our own skills. That’s important. But that doesn’t make Photoshopping any less of an offense.

But the real question here is whether Photoshopped images truly affect our body image. And according to research, they do. Research has shown that looking at airbrushed images boosts body dissatisfaction and decreases self-esteem (and increases the desire to diet).

Still, does retouching even matter when women’s magazines have content such as this? Another writer for The Cut says:

This month, Allure offers “Willpower 101: Easy Tricks for Weight Loss, Exercise, and Work.” Cosmo asks, “Is Stress Turning You Into a Raging Bitch?” but will also tell us what colors will “Make a Man’s Heart Race.” Ironically, In Style will tell you “How to Look Amazing in Photos” (get retouched! Ha). Glamour will tell us how to “Eat, Drink, and Not Gain Weight.” Elle will tell us, “How to Look Seriously Younger, Better, Hotter Than Everyone Else” at a reunion. Meanwhile, GQ will tell men about “The Best Stuff of ’09 Cars! Clothes! Food!” (FOOD!) Details reads, “If You’re Not Already Screwing Around, You Will Be.” So women are fat, stressed, bitchy, and wrinkly, and if we want to please our men we better carefully examine his psyche and do and wear exactly the right things to keep him happy. Because don’t you know? If he’s not cheating on you now, he will be! Telling readers when photos are retouched won’t have much effect on all that.

What do you think? Have Photoshopped images gone too far? Does airbrushing negatively affect your body image? Does it even matter?

Comments

This post currently has 13 comments/trackbacks. You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts on our new comments page.

Trackbacks

No trackbacks yet to this post.

    Last reviewed: 2 Sep 2010