enthalpy

Thursday, December 03, 2009


The newest warning label to protect us from ourselves? Altered photographs in advertising. Ok, so it's just the French, but I still think it's funny.
But she has also created a small furor here and abroad with her latest proposal: a draft law that would require all digitally altered photographs of people used in advertising be labeled as retouched.

Underneath it all is an emotional debate about what it is to be attractive or unattractive, and whether the changing ideals of beauty — from Sophia Loren to Twiggy — have ever been realistic.
Well, no. Realistic? Who cares, if it gives people what they want? If it's the magazine's job to portray beauty, whatever that is, and it's the ad's job to sell face-spackle and jeans to women, what difference does it make if the photography isn't realistic? Nothing in those magazines is realistic.

But what about the "preserving the body image of girls" and reducing anorexia? So what then about the pictures that aren't altered? I can imagine a caption (probably in Cosmo) of some unrealistically, yet naturally skinny blonde model that says "yeah, I really am this thin, hot and blonde." Is it the magazine's fault because they print a picture of someone that's prettier than its reader? Why do they need to apologize for that?



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