Ever since I can remember there has been discussion about how women in fashion magazines set up an impossible ideal for the rest of society. Makeup, lighting, professional hair, and designer dresses all add up to cover girl magic. With each passing year though, it is less about the makeup, lighting, professional hair or the fit of designer dresses – it is about photoshop.
Some of the ‘edits’ I have seen are amazing. It is almost as if now photographers want harsh lighting because it may be easier to wipe out the flaws for the computer technician/graphic artist. I no longer feel that women on covers (men too) are something to work anyone up in a tizzy, primarily because NO ONE can live up to the ideal even the model/celebrity themselves can’t live up to their own image. The photos on most covers are more illustration than they are photography.
Glamour photography back in the 1920’s through the 40’s in Hollywood often made the subjects look good only in the studio. Over-plucked eyebrows, plucked hairlines, bleached hair, and other practices left actresses sometimes looking like totally messes in everyday life. On occasion, the plucking was so severe that the eyebrows didn’t even grow back. Sometimes the artificial hair color destroyed the integrity of the real hair thus many actresses were forced to wear wigs or cut their hair super short. When all movies were filmed in black and white, many actresses who were supposed to be redheads had to dye their hair pink.
As the art of photography progressed, any unsightly moles on a model or celebrity could be deleted out of the final picture. Facial lines that could give away age were softened. Now a celebrity on a cover of a magazine seems never to age. Any sag, wrinkle, facial flaw, or red eye vanishes with an expert click of the enter button. They are perfectly toned to the point that sometimes they don’t even recognize themselves. Here are a few sites that show the miraculous changes (Madonna) http://www.iconique.com/flash/forum/threads.php?id=711_0_7_0_C (Gwen Stefani) http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=359537992&size=o (Brittany Murphy) http://dlisted.com/node/13878 and (Faith Hill) http://hollywood.outsidethebeltway.com/2007/07/faith-hill-photoshopped-for-redbook-cover/ . The inspiration for this article came from Gallery of the Absurd, ttp://galleryoftheabsurd.typepad.com/14/2007/08/post-2.html#comments ( personally, when I think of Britney Spears I think of the before girl, and sadly, not the after).
Overall, I suppose that now thinking these cover shots set the ideal is ridiculous. With a few swift edits, I too could look like the sweet siren who lures men to crash their ships on jagged shores…and so could you. Besides, who needs to skip a few meals when a tiny waste can be given to anyone? Who knows, maybe the journey of seeking perfection in beauty has finally met its omega.
© 2007 Westerfield
Tags: , 14, beauty ideal, black and white films, Britney Spears, Brittany Murphy, designer dresses, dyed hair color, Faith Hill, fashion, fashion magazines, Gallery of the Absurd, glamour, gwen Stefani, hollywood, madonna, makeup, over plucked eyebrows, photography, photoshop
