This made me mad.

[velvetpage]

Thirty-nine-year-old singer and mother of three Faith Hill is on the cover of this month's Redbook. Except that her image has been photoshopped into a completely different look from the real her. Arm fat, tummy fat, back fat, the lines of love and laughter and life, a great tan - all gone. No wonder women end up striving for unattainable weight goals, never satisfied by their appearance.

Be sure to follow the annotated link at the bottom for exactly what they did to the picture.

Thanks hillarygayle for the link, and whoever she got it from - wayfarersgirl, I think.

Comments

[tormentedartist.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is crazy. But on the other hand i think most people buy into this shit on a deep level.

I had an accquantance tell me that he thought a women over size 4 was fat. So what does that tell you ? I should metion that he was a European and I do notice that they tend to be thinner than Americans. I also noticed that at resturants they don't give you much food.

Butt anyway, not to get too side tracked; I thought that Faith didn't even look human, I mean her arms had like no bones structure. Hell she was already thin ! Well at least you will teach your daughters that these images are bullshit.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm considering printing off both pictures and the annotated commentary and using it in my English class in the fall. I'm just wondering whether that makes sense in a grade four/five class. In middle school, I wouldn't hesitate.

Europeans usually don't have America's distorted sense of portion size, and their culture involves a lot more walking and other sports than ours does. I have been known to seek out European restaurants because I know I'll get the right amount of food there. I mean, most women could fit the occasional Happy Meal into their diet and have the right number of calories per day, but more than that is just too much - and that's just at McDonald's!

However, that said, I was at a healthy weight for my body structure all through high school, and the smallest I ever was since graduating out of the girls' sizes, was an 8.

I'm in a difficult position. I want my children to be healthy. I want them to eat their vegetables and keep the number of sweets down and exercise. Keeping to a good weight is a part of that, and I'm not exactly a good example in that regard. On the other hand, I don't want them to feel that the only way to be beautiful is to be too skinny for their bone structure. Elizabeth in particular has a stocky build, and she's tall for her age; she's never going to be petite. Claire might be, especially if she continues to look like her paternal aunts and eat peas like they're the last food on earth, but even so - I want the focus to be on good health as a road to true beauty. It's a fine line to walk.

[tormentedartist.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I don't want them to feel that the only way to be beautiful is to be too skinny for their bone structure. Elizabeth in particular has a stocky build, and she's tall for her age; she's never going to be petite

I've NEVER found the model type beautiful. But on the other hand not very one can be beautiful on the outside. It just doesn't work like that. But having said that people have different ideas of beauty, also not everyone is like me and needs to have a women that they are physically attracted to.

I'd say that the best thing to do fro your daughters is to help make sure that thye are cool people on the inside. That really counts for a lot.

Having said all of that I know that you are already doing that.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Piet never found that type beautiful, either, which is definitely a point in his favour.

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you will teach your daughters well because you already are. We get two messages go have a 4th meal but don't get fat. America has a very bipolar society when it comes to food and weight issues. Every other commercial is fixated on weight loss or eating.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

I'm curious what he meant by 'size 4', though. I'm getting down towards a size 4 (I think my last pair of pants were a size 6, and they're loose), except when I'm a size 8 or 10. Also, I'm either an XS, S, M, or L, depending on who you ask. I haven't significantly changed sizes in terms of measurements or what I weigh in YEARS, but my clothing size keeps getting smaller and smaller.

So if he means by '4' what 4 means in upscale stores that cater to middle aged women? It's not that ridiculous of a statement. Uncompromising and thoughtless, but not ridiculous. If his '4' is the '4' of an expensive, trendy boutique that caters to teenaged girls, that's pretty insane.

[tormentedartist.livejournal.com]

He meant the size 4 that teenage girls wear.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

Which teenaged girls? At target? At the fashion district in LA?

What I'm getting at here is that the disparity of sizes has gotten so bad that it's better to talk in measurements -- assuming that you know what the measurements mean, of course. I once knew of a kid who was under the impression that 90ZZ was the bra size of a petite, busty woman, rather than of a giantess.

Unless someone can prove to me that they know what they mean by 'size 4', and that it means the same to them that it does to me, I'm mostly going to discount what they say. Except maybe to point out that they themselves don't meet the standards they're setting, because usually the sorts of people who say these things don't. :P

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Very creepy... see here (http://thegallopingbeaver.blogspot.com/2007/07/whats-wrong-with-this-picture.html) for another example (though, alas, it doesn't have before-and-after shots).

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

That's fabulous in its creepiness.

[firesign10.livejournal.com]

Wow! that's awful!

I really liked her face untouched - I thought it had tons more personality.

It's pretty damn offensive they way they feel they have to change an attractive, talented person like that.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Arm fat? I'd have to take some sort of medical scan to prove that they weren't airbrushing away muscle in that photomanipulation.

[lovmelovmycats.livejournal.com]

Well they are airbrushing away "fat", muscle and bone; look at her magically shrinking elbow.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought. If there are any fat cells on her arm, I'd bet they're outnumbered more than two to one by muscle cells.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

First, while I recognize your point of view, I'm not sure I see why it has to be limited to "feminism" -- cynical digital alteration of celebrity images is an offensive objectification regardless of the victim's gender or sexual preferences. (However, that said, I'm also willing to believe--but would be interested to see numbers to back it up--that this happens with female celebrities much more than male.)

Secondly, why don't celebrities sue the pants off magazines that do this kind of thing? (Redbook is arguably futzing with one of Faith Hill's trademarks--her visage--aren't they?) Or do magazines protect themselves by preserving "photoshopping rights" when they present a contract to a celebrity for such a shoot?

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

Because celebrities need face time to stay celebrities, and also they don't want to show up on magazine covers looking like hell. Which is what would happen if they started pissing on magazines for altering their images.

[blue-comet.livejournal.com]

It's lame, but anyone who is going to reject a person for not fitting a magazine generated standard of beauty is not worth the time.

Since I finished high school, I've fluctuated between a size 12 and a size 18. I've never had any trouble finding attractive, smart, interesting men who wanted to date me.

Truth be told, most of the men I've ever dated were thrilled to be with a woman who didn't constantly obsess about weight and her diet or hide her body under the sheets when they were having sex.

I've been reading women's magazines since I was 11, and I've never gone on a diet. To me, someone telling me I'm fat is as ridiculous as telling me I'm six feet tall or that I have red hair. It's not true. I'm not about to go home and think "OMG, I REALLY AM SIX FEET TALL" and I'm not about to go home and think "OMG I REALLY AM FAT."

[blue-comet.livejournal.com]

Wow, the difference in the arm is really creepy, and gets creepier the more I look at it.

[hannahmorgan.livejournal.com]

For an interesting, school-useful and detailed lesson on this subject, see also http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/. I love that one!

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I hope you don't mind if I also do a posting. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Of course not - that's why it's public.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

This doesn't really surprise me, and it only actually bothers me a little. The fact is, people (most people) look way crappier in pictures than they do in real life. I know I do. And I've gotten very, very good at using photoshop to do many of the things that were done on that picture, especially in terms of evening out skin tone and smoothing lines.

... Although I don't like the 'totally smooth perfect' look, because it looks fake to me. Also, the thing that some people do of making people's eyes crisp and white scares the hell out of me.

The thing that bothers me is not that this stuff happens, but that people pretend that it doesn't. If we were all totally honest about what is done to make the models look as good as they do, then no one would expect themselves or other women to be able to look that way naturally.

Remember that the photographer and whoever photoshopped the image (if the photographer didn't to it) are professionals who are paid to make the models look as good as possible. That is their job. The same way that you or I wouldn't be shy about editing the crap out of our writing to make it as good as we needed to without giving a thought to all of the young writers who might hold their first drafts to unrealistic standards as a result, they have to do what they have to do to the photographs.

(I am a little annoyed about the fat thing, but at the same time, I know that excess weight bulging out around clothing doesn't look very good at any size. Probably this could have been better solved by wearing clothes that fit properly, but what can you do?)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You know what bothers me most about it? I can handle things like the right hand being edited off her thigh, and even the bit of bulge at the back of the dress, and I can handle the way they lightened her skin. But I hate that they took out the beautiful lines around her eyes and mouth. Remember the series of commercials a few years ago about, "If these lines could talk"? Well, her lines talk, and they say that she's a woman with a full, happy life. One of my goals in writing is to give complete pictures of my characters. Taking those lines out had the opposite effect. It was bad editing.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

You mean the crevasses filled with shadow? But again, those probably don't look that way in real life. Those shadows were cast by the strong lighting on her face.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they don't look that way in real life - but they look more real than the line-free face of the touched-up photo. At least, they do when you consider that she's almost forty. Real thirty-nine-year-old women have lines around their eyes.

[purplkat.livejournal.com]

As I said before, I too prefer, even in touched up photos, that some flaws be left in. But the deep shadows on her face are a result of the light that they shine on her to take the pictures, so those wouldn't naturally be there if you saw her in real life. I have the exact same areas on my face that collect shadows, and if I'm photographed under intense lighting (ie, a photographer's lighting) I don't even look like myself. I look like another person.

The first time I noticed this was when Sam started drawing me. He'd set me up under harsh lighting (so that he could get interesting shadows to work with), and when he'd take breaks, I'd look at the drawings and they never looked anything like me. The body was mine, but the face wasn't. It wasn't until after I did some photographs for the Yar! hat that I realized that the shadows weren't Sam being a crappy artist -- they were the result of the light. Once I took them out, the girl in the picture started looking like me again.