News from the publishing world this week says that magazines could be banned from using airbrushed photos of celebrities that make them look slimmer. Editors from glossy magazines Vogue, Hello! and Elle among others are meeting to discuss fears that using digitally enhanced pictures promote ‘unrealistic body images’ to readers and fuel a size zero culture.
Considering recent examples of the dark art of digital enhancement, “unrealistic” is perhaps too kind an adjective to describe the results. A favourite case study often cited is the amusing disparity between the “before” (read: real) and “after” promotional images of famously flat chested and waifish actress Keira Knightly for the film King Arthur. The poster image saw Knightly doctored to almost unrecognisable proportions, with a pert, inflated chest; full, windswept hair and a deep, flawless tan. The end product bore so little resemblance to Knightly that one almost wondered why she was cast in the first place.
Another example of freakish digital enhancement saw GQ magazine devote a recent cover to American sweetheart Rachel Bilson. Her bikini clad body had been so cropped, nipped and scaled down that her head was thrown drastically out of proportion, creating an epic, elephantine head balanced atop a teeny doll-like body.
Painfully blatant computer generated images do call into question the credibility of the magazines and editors that publish them. And they do promote fantasy notions of what famous people look like – but who said that we can’t laugh at the simulated, imaginary picture of someone who no longer looks human? Someone whose personal characteristics have been deleted, glossed over to create a standardised, acceptable look: whose freckles have been airbrushed, eyes enlarged, brows lifted, love handles lopped, thighs trimmed, legs lengthened, cheekbones heightened not by nature, but by computer software package?
Rather than spark feelings of inadequacy, can’t we raise a collectively cynical eyebrow to it all? Sophie Gregory, Van Communications
