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Combatting Photoshop Of Horrors
New York, 5:44 PM
Wed Dec 9
73 posts in the last 24 hours
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Combatting Photoshop Of Horrors |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
05/13/09
'A generation of girls has Heathers to thank ("Grow up, Heather! Bulimia is so '87!") for their warped behaviour.'
Really? That was hardly ahow-to. Okay, that movie-of-the-week that taught Christina Ricci to save her puke in tupperware, maybe. But dark satire with characters in oversized, shoulder-padded blazers?
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True, but I had cellulite back then, too.
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If you tell girls and young women that they're fantastic the way they are, and then turn around and shill a bunch of makeup and tiny, tiny clothes at them, it's cognitive whiplash.
So when are mags going to acknowledge that we're not JUST bodies? We're not JUST BMIs or pimples or wrinkles or leg hair or neuroses. Honestly, I'd rather learn how things like voltmeters and neuraminidase work, than learn about 200+ uses for spray tanner and Proactiv. And sure, there are places I can learn about these things. But since I'm a woman, it's assumed that I don't really WANT intellectual/personal/professional development between the pages of the publications that are aimed at me.
05/13/09
"If women's magazines devoted more of their content to spiritual, intellectual, psychological, social, professional, relational, charitable and recreational development, and less to celebrity worship, fashion, beauty and perfecting the physical self, do you think we'd all have a more balanced/'whole' view of ourselves and start enjoying a more fulfilling life? I do."
05/13/09
the tiny tiny clothes, sadly that will never end. I totally agree that's BS in a "love your body" issue.
Personally I prefer Mental Floss for magazine reading.
05/13/09
Kind of scares me and fascinates me at the same time.
05/13/09
I'm mad that magazines for women are constantly focussed on hair and beauty and selling teensy clothes and never discussing anything vaguely intellectual too. There, you have my full support.
But. I love fashion and I love photography, and I think criticising magazines for having well-lit and well-made-up photographs is a little unfair. I know some great photographers, make-up artists (and indeed models - okay, self included) who would be hurt by the implication here that no matter what they do, they're damaging feminism and young female body image. Is it always inappropriate to celebrate and enhance beauty? What if it's shown alongside features about literature and science and politics, which are illustrated by photographs of the outstanding women in the field looking as they do in everyday life? Is good fashion photography still harmful?
This is one aspect of beauty-mag criticism that always makes me uncomfortable, and I hope I managed to kind of articulate why
05/13/09
But there's a difference between striking, thought-provoking photography--and a bland piece about another boring celeb who is fitter and richer than I will ever be. And if that bland piece is interspersed with exhortations to "love my body!" and "great at any weight!" and "you are beautiful the way you are!", while glorifying very fit, wealthy people with resources and wardrobes and BMIs that I will NEVER be able to attain or afford, ANd a bunch of clothes and makeup are being foisted at me? The message is distorted, discordant, jarring.
Beautiful photography doesn't have to be about positive body image or self-esteem at all. It can be about anything from the outlandish to the mundane, from the bizarre to the conventional, but it doesn't inherently have to make me feel bad about myself, and in that you're right.
I just think that most ladymags have some jarring juxtapositions between the messages they purport to send (love yourself! beautiful clothes for all sizes!) and the OTHER messages they send (Look at this very thin, rich celebrity! You should like her a lot, or perhaps emulate her by buying this makeup and this supportive undergarment!"
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You're a baby with no hair? and no teeth? go for OAP look!
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I feel like the media is constantly talking down to our young women (all women, really) and sometimes I marvel that so many of us Jezebels managed to make it out sane(ish).