Photoshopping in Advertising

You may want to grab a cup of tea before reading this because it's a long one with a lot of background issues. 

As a young female who has been through the absolute mill when it comes to self-hatred and body issues this is a subject close to my heart. I've never been naive and always knew the pictures in the magazines are not a true
reflection on what the person ACTUALLY looks like but I really think that's a generational thing. Although I'm still quite young at twenty I know technology has come on leaps and bounds since I was thirteen and it's harder to detect editing nowadays particularly as children seem to be growing up quicker than ever. 

I'm quite lucky that despite me being fascinated and enveloped by celebrity culture and the distinctive and unachievable beauty of models I have always had one role model in mind - my mother. No matter what Rebecca Romijn looked like on the cover of a magazine I always brushed it off as edited (even though, of course she's stunning in real life) and focused instead on becoming like my mother. 

I know that not everyone has that luxury and body dysmorphia is unfortunately a growing trend as young girls are exposed to this frankly unrealistic view of what society deems as beauty. The joke is that it seems to follow the same pattern - when you're 13 you want breasts but you don't know that curvy = fat until a boy calls you a pig. Then you wish you were straight up and down like the beautiful Cara Delevingne but once you hit the age of 17 suddenly you look like a little boy - no, sorry, you're way too thin, are you anorexic? It's all about having curves. Ah but wait, don't get TOO curvy, that's fat. You have to have the body of Scarlett Johansson but to maintain you need to order a salad with no dressing because it's not natural for your body to have that figure BUT you can't order a salad - boys want girls that eat burgers. Watch you don't eat too many burgers though - you might gain a little bit of weight and look disgusting again. 

You. Can't. Win. 

Then suddenly things swing the other way and you're not considered a "real woman" unless you're curvy. I'm sorry, if you're naturally a slim build because you're blessed with a fast metabolism or you're tall and of an athletic build, are you suddenly not a real woman? Are you suddenly not considered beautiful because you're not a 34DD but a modest and equally attractive 32B? 

Don't get me wrong, I am of the "curvy" nature and I'm so glad to see that companies are trying to branch out and change the way the media portrays women in society but it's not about showing that being slightly on the chubby side is "real" - it's about showcasing all the types of women in the world. Some women are broad, some are born with kick-ass curves (ahem Sofia Vergara) and some are blessed with the body of a supermodel. It's about embracing the body and knowing that not every body has to fit into a category. 

I will add though, after decades of advertising that's shown that skinny = sexy I am more than happy that curvaceous women are having their time to shine. I know it's bad that there seems to be this constant need to segregate a body type but every dog needs to have it's day. Having said that, let's push the segregation back and let every body type shine now.

And please, I am not a feminist and I don't wish to preach but it's no wonder teenagers feel this pressure to look perfect and survive on an apple a day when noone seems to be saying "you can't change the figure you were born to have and you shouldn't, because you're beautiful". 

I'm going to pick on Dove for a minute which is a shame because I like the idea behind what they're doing/done with the whole "Real Beauty" campaign and when I was younger and saw this on a giant billboard at a service station (evidence of good and hard-hitting advertising that I remember where I saw it first) I remember my father pointing it out to me and saying that for once he felt attracted to every single woman on that advert. At the time I was thinking "yeah, empowerment, I like that" but as I've gotten older and experienced life a little more, met more people etc I have come to realise that this advert is actually really unfair on naturally slim girls. There isn't one body on there that is tall, slim (I'm trying so hard not to say skinny here but you know what I mean) and straight up and down. How awful must these girls  have felt when they saw this advert? 

Dove's most recent campaign was what drove me to write this post. They touch on the world of photoshopping which is a weird subject for me because I'm of an unpopular opinion when it comes to it. I'll pop the video below so you can see for yourself but they basically disguised an "anti-photoshopping" application within an online photoshop technique download site that claims to enhance beauty. When the effect is applied, it erases all the work that had been done by the technician and displayed a message. It can be undone so people who've spent hours enhancing a picture won't get super mad and frustrated at their work being ruined but the message is conveyed. 

About seven years ago Dove released an advert with a similar message stating that it's no wonder our view of beauty is distorted when most of the images we see are distorted too. I will leave that advert below. As I said, I'm not hating on Dove. I love what they're trying to achieve and the message they're sending out and I really hope a thirteen year old girl sees these campaigns and takes away something positive from it all.  

When it comes to photoshop I am of the Tina Fey belief (mentioned in her book, Bossypants). Basically, if I were to go to a shoot tomorrow and have my picture put straight on the cover of a magazine unedited I would probably break down and cry because people might notice one of my eyes is slightly higher than the other or that I am covered in freckles or have blemishes on my face that would shine through in harsh studio lighting. Why not fill in a set of wrinkles? Why not cover up the large zit? Noone wants to see a picture of their face plastered everywhere unfiltered for the world to see. 

I do however think there needs to be some kind of disclaimer when using photoshopped images. I'm all for having my face in a magazine, edited so I look young and vibrant but with a worldwide recognised stamp to show it has been edited. That way, if a thirteen year old girl was to open that magazine, see me looking flawless and start to hear those horrible voices in her head she can STOP as soon as she sees that that photo is not real. That photo is not a reflection on how I truly look. That photo is me but "better". Therefore that photo should not make you want to cover all the mirrors in your house. 

There is nothing wrong with making a picture look better but when it's affecting people so drastically in today's society there IS something that should be being done about it. I understand that it's hard to sell a face cream that is supposed to look like it brightens up your complexion when your model has had a few too many late nights and looks like she could do with a long sleep so I do think there's definitely a place for a spot of editing but it needs to be honest and it needs to be transparent. 

With body shapes I do see quite an issue - I'm going to leave a set of gifs at the end of this post showing a few celebrities that have been modified with photoshop and to me, the changes are stark and unnecessary. People like Jennifer Lawrence who have a stunning and healthy figure are made thinner and Katy Perry who has been blessed with quite the figure has her breasts lifted when they looked perfectly fine to start with. It just seems so unnecessary and these aren't SELLING anything - they're not strictly advertising although I suppose technically they're a form of advertising but it's not a case of "we're selling a foundation that promises a flawless coverage yet our model appears to contradict that so ignore her face". These are just photoshoots. 

I can't even begin to imagine how the actresses and models feel when they see the images and realise someone, somewhere thought they weren't good enough as they were to grace the pages of magazines. 

To conclude, I see a place for photoshop in certain circumstances but think there should be a worldwide recognised stamp to SHOW that this image has been digitally altered and I think it should be a regulation enforced by third party regulators so that young girls aren't of the belief that that is a real image and that is what people ACTUALLY look like. With bodies, to me, it's a different story and I don't think they should be slimmed down and edited to "perfection". There is no perfect. It's time the world accepted that.