Impossible Beauty?
Someone on my Friends list (maybe 
Vito?) linked to a web page some time back that showed a model before and after being Photoshopped like crazy. Along those same lines, Dove’s new commercial shows a woman being made over for a photo shoot and then Photoshopped almost beyond recognizability as the same woman. The tag line is “no wonder our beauty standards are so distorted.”
[...] in one sense, it nets out to the importance of reflecting reality versus the importance of presenting something, however unreal and unattainable, toward which people can reach.
I don’t even think it’s so much the unattainability of it that’s bizarre and questionable, although that’s a fair point, and I don’t know how valuable it is to give people something like that to “reach” for. I just think there’s a freakin’ huge spectrum of possible beauty, and the tastemakers (such as those in advertising) are only presenting us with a sliver of it.
Your thoughts?
7 Responses to “Impossible Beauty?”
Posted: Oct 16th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
I think enticing people to think that they need to be covered in make-up, rail thin, and “blemish” free is very harmful for self-image. And it also leaves out some of the most beautiful people in the world. Is it “wrong” to use those techniques in advertising? Not really. If the culture didn’t tell people that’s how they should look, the advertising wouldn’t work and wouldn’t affect people.
Posted: Oct 16th, 2006 at 4:02 pm
FYI - that link didn’t work for me but this one did
http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/
Posted: Oct 16th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Very cool. I’m gonna repost that link on my LJ. Some people on my f-list will appreciate it.
Posted: Oct 17th, 2006 at 1:02 am
It pisses me off to know that there are so many beautiful women in my life who don’t see themselves as beautiful at all. In large part, it’s because they can’t help but compare themselves to these unapproachable standards found on the covers on magazines and such.
I really could rant on and on about this.
Posted: Oct 17th, 2006 at 1:03 am
Oh, and I’m not anonymous. I’m Chez Bez, or just Mike.
Posted: Oct 18th, 2006 at 10:45 am
I’ve fought this battle my whole life and now, watching my own 13 year old daughter deal with it…
One time, I was griping about my appearance to a guy friend and he said “Men aren’t as hard on how women look as you think”..I’ve kinda come to see women put this pressure on each other more than from the opposite sex.
Sharon-aka-Sista Smiff
Posted: Jan 18th, 2007 at 8:20 am
i’m with you too !