News Flash!: 'Real' Bodies

Every day, women in the Western world are exposed to images of impossibly perfect female bodies. Pert breasts, taught stomachs, lean legs; they permeate our culture and guide our discussions about beauty and body appreciation. However, this ‘ideal’ body image shepherds women towards a narrow standard of beauty that is often impossible to achieve. No where is this more obvious than in print images, where women’s bodies are manipulated and distorted to achieve an ideal image. Thanks to the pervasive practice of extensive Photoshopping, the ‘ideal’ body is no longer be bound to the limits of how a real woman looks.

As a result of the impossible bodies that advertisers and magazines constantly flaunt, women are told to aspire to a standard of beauty that does not even exist in a flesh-and-blood form. Recently, however, French parliament member Valérie Boyer proposed legislature that would require all advertisers who use retouched photos to mark the images as such. According to a New York Times article , Boyer proposed the regulations after she considered how images of perfect, computer-sculpted bodies affect her teenage daughters. "Today, we are forced to imitate bodies that do not exist, and this affects people, especially women," she notes, adding that the ultimate goal of the legislation would be to make obvious the unrealistic nature of these images.

Through this law, Boyer hopes to soften the impact of these perfect images by revealing them to be essentially unattainable. They are fantasy, and as such are not legitimate goals for flesh-and-blood women who live in a decidedly real world. However, opposition to the proposed legislature argue that it is precisely this sense of fantasy that allows the image to transcend reality, to offer a kind of paradise that elevates it above the everyday. The ability to retouch a photo, they argue, is just one tool in the artist’s arsenal and to take it away would be to undermine the validity of that art form.

While this rhetoric is compelling—and I can certainly understand the use of artistic retouches in certain contexts—it ignores the fact that the photo retouching this legislation seeks to expose does not attempt to make an artistic statement, but rather attempts to sell a perfected facsimile of reality as reality itself. It is the retouching that is subtle enough to not undermine the realism of the photo that is most problematic because the image masquerades as reality. For example, this ad by Dove, entitled ‘Evolution’ shows the extensive transformative efforts put into a more or less realistic image of a an attractive woman. The final image is constructed in such a way that the hours of labor put into achieving it become invisible. As a viewer, we do not see the work by the hair and makeup crew or the Photoshop effects employed to make her eyes larger and her face slimmer. Instead, we simply see an attractive woman. When used in advertising, this image performs the role of an idealized self—what we could be if we were a little thinner or wore the right makeup or had the right hair products.

The use of excessively retouched photos in advertising reveals how impossible standards of beauty tie into a capitalist ideology. As Levy writes in Female Chauvinist Pigs, “hotness has become our cultural currency, and a lot of people spend a lot of time and a lot of regular, green currency trying to acquire it.” (p. 31) As such, it makes sense that advertisers would opt to use heavily re-touched photos to promote their product, especially in beauty or athletic industries, which capitalize on the public’s concern with obtaining a certain image. These industries advertise themselves as being able to provide women (and to a lesser extent men) a means to attain desirability as it is defined by mainstream culture. However, by defining the look of desirability with an image that is unattainable (i.e. retouched), they also ensure that that standard will never be met and thus perpetuate the need for their product.

Those opposed to the proposed legislation, however, are quick to reframe retouching in a softer light. In this CNN piece, Elle creative director Joe Zee argued that he “would never drastically alter someone's body, change their hair color, move a neck, or whatever it is. It's really about cleaning up skin tones and looking beautiful.” While French fashion photographer Dominique Issermann refuted claims about the dangers of retouching by pointing out that she actually added weight on to waifish Kiera Knightly for her Chanel photoshoot. (Erlanger, 2009) While both Zee and Isserman maintain that they do not retouch photos drastically or to achieve an overly slender look, they fail understand the issue with the principle of retouching. Whether it adds curves or removes blemishes, it still manipulates a real female body, only to turn around and sell that manipulation as reality, without any disclosure as to its falseness.

By increasing public awareness about the extent to which photos in print media are manipulated, it may be possible to reveal the fantasy of ideal beauty and thus ease anxieties about reaching that standard. However, I feel that Boyer’s proposed legislation is treating only one symptom of a greater problem. The fact remains that, whether or not they are retouched, the women we see in print media conform to a narrow definition of what it means to be physically attractive. By idealizing this particular brand of attractiveness, other styles and body types are marginalized. For example, many women—even in their peak physical condition—will never have the same body type as the tall, thin models that pervade most advertising. Whether these images are Photoshopped or not, they perpetuate an ideal of beauty that is unattainable for a good number of women.

Ironically, the very media outlets that reinforce these narrow standards also voice the rhetoric of inclusiveness and self-confidence. Pick up any women’s magazine and you’ll see headlines about being confident in your skin alongside articles about how to slenderize your stomach and tighten your jiggly thighs. The messages women recieve about their bodies today are a schizophrenic jumble of girl power confidence boosters and beauty manuals with an appalling subtext of body shaming. While Boyer’s proposed legislation is a step in the right direction, it remains only a small move towards a more inclusive view of beauty and sexual attractiveness.

References

Erlanger, Steve. “Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label?.” New York Times. 9 Dec 2009. < pagewanted="1&_r="1">

Evans, Tom. “Von Furstenberg: ‘Beauty is Health’.” CNN. 11 Feb 2010. <>

Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs. New York: Free Press, 2005.