Airbrushed Ethics
Unit: Photography
Okay, the rant first
The media focus on physical appearance bleeds into every other aspect of our lives, cresting with celebrations like a high school Spirit Week, prom, etc. (To be fair, Halloween is probably the worst; Halloween, however, is mitigated by candy. Also to be fair, I might be a curmudgeon who should be put out to pasture.)
The outfits worn by students to demonstrate spirit often demonstrate skin and not much else. This is to be expected, though. Spirit, energy, vigor; youth, charisma, sexiness; even intelligence: all of it is pounded into our collective unconscious as tied to, dependent on, and reflected in the physical.
The problem is how obscenely dishonest the media is in projecting this image of sex and beauty. It’s common knowledge that models, especially female models, are airbrushed; it’s how much they are airbrushed that escapes attention.
This activity is about awareness, and we aren’t just looking at women, or at models. We are looking at celebrities of all kinds. We are looking at Maxim Magazine, Time Magazine, and GQ. As you read, jot down reactions and ideas; you will then discuss in class and here, in the comments, one of the most systemic ethical violations in advertising and image peddling.
The reading and related questions
Before anything else, read this article on photoshopping (clicking the image will also load it). Skim through it, paying attention to the celebrities quoted and the general ideas covered. Use this as a jumping-off point; take notes as you go on ideas to which you think you may return.
Now, then: Google is a wonderful thing, despite it’s ever more obvious plan to take over the world. Use it to find pictures and articles beyond the following, dealing with the indicated topics:
1. Martha Stewart on the cover of Newsweek. (This also discusses the next fiasco.)
2. OJ Simpson on the cover of Time.
3. Jamie Lee Curtis in More, a magazine for women over 40.
4. Kate Winslet on the cover of GQ.
Follow up the last two celebrities on the list by reading the following:
1. The interview with Kate Winslet on the BBC News site. In one quotation, she is reported to say that there are two kinds of photos of celebrities. I believe she is entirely correct about this dichotomy. Be sure to include your thoughts on this in your response.
2. The 48 Hours transcript featuring Jamie Lee Curtis at CBS News. It aired on April 4, 2003. Read the report.
Note: You should look up as many examples of airbrushing, Photoshopping, and other image-related lies as you can. These are formative examples from a few years ago; there are more recent examples that you can and should bring into the discussion!
Dove
Visit the website for Dove to see their most recent advertising campaign. This campaign and others like it have been a staple of Dove’s branding since the 2006 Super Bowl. How much presence do you think it has? Do women want this kind of representation? Do men?
YouTube currently hosts Dove’s videos for this ad campaign. We mentioned these briefly as we studied advertising; for now, you may want simply to watch them:
YouTube search results for “Dove”
Before and after
Body Dysmorphic Disorder isn’t just pushed through models. Women purported to represent middle America are also edited for viewing. Here is Katie Couric’s airbrushed moment.
To give you an idea of how severe the airbrushing of all media images can be, visit the following sites. (The descriptions of each site are taken from Kris Abel’s technology blog.)
Greg Apodaca
Greg only has two fashion photos in his portfolio, the rest are product and location retouches, but those two fashion shots are very entertaining. He actually takes the photos and divides them into zoomed sections so you can really see the detailed changes for each body part.
Girl Power
This online introduction to the tricks of digital retouching was created by Sweden’s Ministry of Health and Social Affairs for teen girls so they could better understand the unrealistic ideals set by fashion magazines and be able to put such photos in perspective.
FluidEffect
This agency’s gallery actually has real celebrity before and after photos in it – including the Desperate Housewives, Sarah Jessica-Parker, Mariah Carey and others. After you agree to their disclaimer, click on portfolio then on before/after or composite manipulation. Unlike the other galleries on this list, just moving your cursor over the image won’t change it, you have to use the “Click to see before” button.
Shanzcan Gallery
Here is a great example of portrait shots used for big name magazine covers. The changes are more artistic and creative than digital surgery, but an excellent example of just how much doctoring is done with today’s magazine covers.
Glen Feron
One of the biggest digital surgery agencies, Glen Feron has taken their portfolio offline to relaunch it. This gallery is truly amazing in the way they completely remove, add, insert entire objects into photos. The body sculpting and changes were very impressive too.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
When you are finished browsing, your assignment is this: Write a significant and articulate response to the ideas and examples above, making specific reference to what you have seen and read, and focusing on your personal reactions. Let this be an outline only; you will use this to generate comments here and in-class as part of a lengthy adversarial grade.
As you write and plan your comments, you should touch on the ethics of this kind of imagery. Use all of the above information to generate intelligent, insightful commentary on the visual impact of media on you and your peers. Think back to our first look at advertising; think back also to our recent study of photography and its power.
I am bolding this so that you will realize that it is important: Use your time with this assignment in class to begin typing a response. Jot down ideas, copy and paste quotations, dash off descriptions of photographs, and so on; just be sure to be specific, to be personal but insightful, and to make the response significant in length. Don’t ask me how long it has to be; I’ll just say, “Long enough.”
Oh, and one more thing: Comments will be closed on this post until I’ve given you a few days to read, research, and figure out how you will approach this topic. Then you will be able to start the adversarial conversation in earnest.
To start off I want to talk about the Kate Winslet’s picture. Since women began to show up in photography they have been made to look absolutely beautiful and perfect. Kate Winslet is a model and I’m sure she’s very self confident and knows she is beautiful. But the thing is, is that her photograph was airbrushed so only people who personally know her and work with her know what she really looks like. In the media producers only focus on what’s appealing to the eye so that’s why they airbrushed her photo because although she is very beautiful she may have a flaw or two that would not look good on a magazine cover. When reading the article I read that Kate Winslet was actually offended by the fact the the company airbrushed her photo. To be honest this surprised me because she’s a model and I just assumed that model’s are used to that kind of thing. Yes it is true that she may be upset that GQ magazine changed her photo but like she said, once that picture is taken it is owned by the company and you have no rights to that photo.
On to the Martha Stewart photograph, Newsweek put Martha Stewart on their front cover to advertise her “last laugh”. Considering I don’t follow Martha Stewart I can only imagine what they mean by that. To be quite honest, when I read what the NPPA chairman John Long said I was kind of annoyed. He got so worked up about the fact that it wasn’t Martha Stewart’s body in the picture. Well I hate to break it to you Mr. Long but I don’t think there’s been one picture that hasn’t been adjusted since magazine agencies got their hands on the technology that can alter a photo. Long discussed the fact that the reason why the photos should be real is so people can trust the idea behind the photo and not just the words. Honestly, I don’t know if people really care whether or not it was Martha Stewart’s body. If there are two people looking at the photo on a newsstand one person is going to say “Wow she looks good.” And the other might say “Her body doesn’t even look real.” People just want to know what her “last laugh” is going to be and that makes them buy the magazine and the people who get paid to make the magazines sell have done their jobs.
I thought the Dove YouTube video was very insightful, because it’s true with magazines and other advertising agencies changing how everyone looks no one really knows what true beauty is anymore. Also with viewing the video I got to see how much actually goes into making a person look beautiful and even after all the makeup and styling the hair the editors still had to change how she looked to make her pleasing to the eyes of America. The same goes for Greg Apodaca’s portfolio, he focuses on the details and changed them so every picture was perfected.
The Portfolios and pictures that stuck with me the most was the FluidEffect, the Shanzcan Gallery and Girl Power. Girl Power is an example of what’s wrong with the teenage girls and women in America. They took a regular, beautiful teenage girl and made her into something she’s not. Girl’s who are insecure strive for perfection because they’re so afraid of being themselves because that means they can be judged. That’s why these technologies have been invented because everyone Next with the Galleries, most of the pictures have a lot to do with the lighting and brightening people’s faces. When I first looked at all the picture I didn’t see anything wrong with them and I wondered what had been photo shopped. After I saw the original, the photo shopped picture just didn’t look right anymore. The details that I originally thought looked normal now looked unreal.
Overall, I think photo-shop editing has positive qualities and negative qualities. On the positive side it adds light and makes products look good. On the negative side it’s given America a distorted look on true beauty and with the way things are going that negative side weighs a lot.
Gwen, I agree with you. I tend to look at most advertising photos and think of them as caricatures rather than reality. The photos, through their careful bending of reality, are able to pose an argument about the lifestyle behind a product (and by product, I also mean a celebrity like Kate Winslet). Visually, the photos give the audience a representation of the product that will sell whatever the argument is (whether it’s the story of OJ Simpson as a fallen hero or Kate Winslet as a sex symbol)
Responding to Katie:
Before I had read any of this information, I didn’t realize how many pictures are heavily airbrushed and photoshopped. So before, I thought of photos as only reality, (well mostly). But now, after knowing everything, I HAVE to look at them as caricatures or cartoons. How can we tell if any photo in any magazines ar real anymore? I feel slightly betrayed, honestly.
I’m probably very biased when commenting on your post Gwen, (mostly because I’m a guy) but I don’t think that photoshopping as shoved glamour down Americans’ throats to the point of it “[giving] America a distorted look on true beauty.”
Most of the time, only models and other celebrities are professionally photoshopped to enhance their looks, and I think anyway that most Americans recognize the fact that the (fake) beauty that such people have is unatainable.
After all, we all learned as children (I have no idea why I’m referencing childhood lessons in all of my posts for this blog) that it’s “what’s on the inside” that matters, and not “what’s on the outside.” Granted, some people are very shallow, and refuse to interact with those that are less “pretty” than they are; just like how some people believe that aliens will take over the world and subsequently enslave the human race. However, most do not solely consider physical appearance when they contemplate starting a conversation with someone, that is, unless the person being contemplated over is really hot, or really ugly, then the decision becomes a bit less ambiguous. However, this has always been the case before Photoshop existed, and will continue when aliens do finally invade our world and enslave us all.
Matt – we all got that talk about inner beauty, and I agree with that proverbial lesson, yet looks mean a lot too. Americans ARE shallow. Looks have become very important in society. As you said, regular people realize the perfection of models and celebrities is truly unattainable. Nevertheless, we all want to look as attractive as we possibly can be (mostly for romantic and social purposes). But the definition of attractive has changed as we have become more advanced. Beauty is fake, and we have come to accept it. Look at the famous Playboy playmate, Heidi Montag, for instance. She recently had ten augmentations in one sitting, yet men are still drooling all over her. Beauty doesn’t have an exact definition, yet the idea of it has gone mainstream. This new view of (fake) beauty can be deteriorated as easily as it was built. The necessity in doing that though is confidence among all women. They need to be comfortable in “their own skin”. If this Dove campaign can gain the publicity that Heidi Montag gets, fake will be the new ugly.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/virginia_postrel_on_glamour.html
I watched this talk on TED a while back and I think Virginia Postrel offers a definition of glamour that speaks to the point of photoshopping. Something “glamorous” is supposed to be beyond the every day because it’s meant to persuade the audience. The appeal is in the illusion and very much like in the advertising unit, we choose to photoshop and alter our images to an inoffensive bland-pretty because it represents this desirable and perfect lifestyle. It’s not about whether the pictures are real or prove to be anatomically correct, it’s about the photos making an argument.
Personally, I see little wrong with altering photographs via photoshop in most cases. Is it lying? Of course. But in today’s society, who really cares? We are told and fed lies on a constant basis, and as a result, should be used to such things by now. Granted, photographs were probably the last things on the face of the Earth that couldn’t lie, but all good things must come to an end sooner or later I suppose.
We were all taught of the “two kinds” of lies when we were growing up. The innocent “white” lie, and the wrong “bad” lie. I believe that the same principles can be applied to photoshopping.
“White” lies in photoshopping simply make the photograph more aesthetically pleasing. Examples include removing pimples from a face, or adding color to an otherwise pale face. These slight alterations do no harm to the audience, and do not “lie” to the point of being ethically difficult.
However, there are “wrong” lies when looking at photoshopping too. These dramatic alterations completely change the grammar of the picture to the point where it no longer looks remotely similar to the original photograph. It is in these few examples where I believe airbrushing/photoshopping goes too far, and becomes wrong. The most prominent example that comes to mind is OJ’s “Time” front cover picture. In this picture, the photoshopper (I think I just made up a new word, oh well; if “Google” can be a verb then “photoshop” can be transformed to fit the role of a person) completely darkens the color of OJ’s skin, which completely changes the meaning of the photograph. What used to be a clasic, and iconic picture now became tainted and indistinguishable.
That opens another point in my argument, that photoshopping can only be done on unknown photos. If a classic photograph is altered, even slightly, then the people will immediately know and be outraged as a result. However, if a newly created picture needs a little “spicing up” through photoshopping, then I see nothing wrong, and I encourage the photoshopper (my made up word again!) to do such things.
I don’t agree with your point about lying, Matt. I think that we really SHOULD care (and many people do) about whether a photo is changed- it’s not about whether it should be done or not (because it will be done anyway), it really only matters that the audience knows the photo is the artist/photographer/magazine’s take on reality.
I’d argue that it’s because photoshopping is such a common form of disillusioning the public, it’s even more important for people to learn the difference between photoshopped photos and reality, even if it’s just acknowledging that photos should be viewed with a healthy skepticism.
Even if it’s just OJ Simpson’s mug shot, simply acknowledging that the added shadows are a device used by the magazine to prove their point is an example of the analysis needed to address the arguments in the photographs. There’s no point in attempting to rehabilitate the system and remove photoshop, it’s fruitless for anyone to be anti-photoshop entirely; it’s mainly important for the consumer to understand how to read photoshopped images.
I agree with the fact that now when I look at these types of photos I can’t even picture them as real. One of the photos that surprised me the most was the photo from Greg Apodaca, where he turned the blonde haired blue eyed woman into a young plastic looking girl. Everything about her was changed…her age, her shape of face, the tone of her skin; the original photo and the new photo could be two different people. It’s kind of ridiculous how obsessed people can be with trying to be appealing and how fake it all really it is. I think editing practically every photo that goes onto a magazine is kind of just setting the public up for dissapointment. Yes, there are beautiful people out there, ones that seem close to perfect, but the amount of celebrities that look how they do on the cover of a magazine is most likely very slim. If I were one to get photoshopped and changed to fix all my imperfections, I’d be pretty embarressed walking out of the house and living in such high expectations of the public. These “perfect” looks are probably what causes so much “trash talk” that comes about when judging celebrities. Everyday they are looked at as so beautiful and perfect, that when the real version of them walks out of the house, there is nothing to do BUT critisize who they really are, and what they really look like.
If I see a fashion photo, I’m honestly not going to care that it’s photoshopped. And even if I did take a special care when I look at the photo, I’m still not going to do anything about the photoshopping that has been done. The picture is made for everything to look perfect and pretty in order to sell a product. I know that the women in those pictures don’t look that way and I know what they’re trying to do with the photo. And knowing this, I feel unaffected by the obvious photoshopping. But otherwise, like I said before, I feel betrayed by the fact that a majority of the photos we see are photoshopped or airbushed. Especially when they are in Time or a magazine that I personally see as a ‘trusted’ magazine. In these circumstances, I care. And though I don’t care that a picture has been photoshopped, doesn’t mean that I’m completely disregarding the fact. I’m just choosing not to do anything at that particular time.
I also agree with you, Katie, about the understanding that all photos are taken and photshopped in order to create an argument. We should understand the photos and what has been done to them, rather than just not caring (I should really take this into consideration next time I look at Vogue, we’ll see).
In looking at the ethics of this cultural phenomenon, we must consider the moral issue that airbrushing conveys. Let’s start by looking at girl shown in the Girl Power article. Being a guy, I viewed the before and after photos with shock. In my opinion, the airbrushed girl I first saw was very attractive. Her glaring eyes, flowing hair, and faint smile immediately caught my attention. Then to my disappointment, I saw the original picture. The girl’s actual hair wasn’t even the same color; her teeth were crooked and discolored; her eyes lost the shine I noticed earlier; her body was completely different! I felt as if I was looking at a completely different person. That’s my problem with airbrushing. To be honest, I don’t see a problem with the light touch up to get rid of a couple blemishes, wrinkles, or loose strands of hair. However, I do not approve of airbrushing as a means of transforming a photo into something it is not. First off, the photo becomes a complete fallacy. Second, it is demeaning to the subject. This actual girl was not the same person that made it to the cover. If I were her, I would feel as if my own body was not good enough to be pictured, so they took my body and made it prettier, sexier. Not to mention, this girl is just fourteen years old! She is a child, and was photographed and then transformed into a different person to be viewed as a sexy cover-girl. This young lady has a mother and a father, maybe a sister or brother. How would you feel if you saw your daughter or sister being photographed for a magazine, then given nicer eyes, straighter and shinier teeth, and larger breasts? This airbrush work is absolutely immoral and completely demoralizing to this innocent girl. Metropolitan should be ashamed.
I agree with you a little, Chris. When it comes to that example, Metropolitan should not have airbrushed that young girl until she turned into a new one. But, when you are a fashion model and pose for couture pictures, you have to know that you are, at one time going to get airbrushed. A lot of people get themselves into it. In this case, I don’t think photoshopping is immoral, nor would I scream or have a fit if I saw a loved one in a photo such as those. Actually, I can’t say if I think photoshopping is immoral at all. I may not like it, but I don’t think it’s immoral, per-say. I’ll finish this comment later. Java just ended.
I agree with Chris, when airbrushing is done to such an extreme that the previous image is completely unrelated to the result, there’s a problem. it sounds cliche, however airbrush extremity falls directly under the blunt category of false advertising. Chris brought up a great point that as a guy, your obviously going to be attracted to the touched up “perfected” image. I find it very important that all guys realize that these images are artificial and that it’s unfair to women everywhere, to be held in comparison to these unachievable stages of beauty. All in all, airbrushing can be unethical when done to a certain extreme. It’s not intentionally produced to be misleading, however one must be concious of the ramifications resulting from this.