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I know everyone has probably had their say on the topic of JK's views already, but I had to weigh in too.
I am regularly appalled by the... what's the word? ...Worship? of the skinny, androgenous, pre-pubecent figure. Of magazines promoting wafer-thin sexless bodies as the ideal for girls and boys to set as a goal. But it is a ludicrously unachievable goal as this ludicrous advertising demonstrates -
This is a prime example of the ridiculous Photoshopping the advertisers do on the models! The purple lines I've added as a rough estimate of where I think her body really was and you can see by the lighting changes where she was cropped.
My point being that not even the models are thin enough! They're promoting figures that cannot be achieved in Real Life as the ideal. What does this do to kids who have no idea that a figure in photo can be manipulated like that? I have seen women's ragmags simply stretch pics on actresses - widthways when they want to flail at them for being fat, lengthways if they want to point the finger at them for being too thin. Seriously WTF?
And, of course, being that wafer-thin means no boobs, so implants are required. Or, as is now the trend in Hollywood, the poor actresses who do happen to have some cleavage are getting breast reductions!! (Jennifer Connelly leaps to mind) Because the andrgenous look is what keeps them working. *head desk*
Look at photos of Marilyn Munroe - all womanly hips and breasts - she would be laughed out of Hollywood today for being horrifically fat.
Which, in my mind is silly and tragic. Women have hips. Women have breasts. They have been designed by nature (or God) to bare children and need hips and breasts to do so. Yet it is the pre-pubescent girl figure that is held up as the ideal, which I find extremely disturbing.
It's not just girls either. The ideal male must either be musclebound or boyish, both with no bodyhair (again with the pre-pubescent).
Why is this? The paedophilic overtones creep me out, and I can't help feeling it's like some weird sort of anti-promotion of sexuality - we're not permitted to show you images of sexually mature males and females because, godforbid, you might think about sex! But we want to use sex to sell our product so we'll use models who look pre-pubescent so that you don't notice. O.o *sigh*
I am regularly appalled by the... what's the word? ...Worship? of the skinny, androgenous, pre-pubecent figure. Of magazines promoting wafer-thin sexless bodies as the ideal for girls and boys to set as a goal. But it is a ludicrously unachievable goal as this ludicrous advertising demonstrates -
This is a prime example of the ridiculous Photoshopping the advertisers do on the models! The purple lines I've added as a rough estimate of where I think her body really was and you can see by the lighting changes where she was cropped.
My point being that not even the models are thin enough! They're promoting figures that cannot be achieved in Real Life as the ideal. What does this do to kids who have no idea that a figure in photo can be manipulated like that? I have seen women's ragmags simply stretch pics on actresses - widthways when they want to flail at them for being fat, lengthways if they want to point the finger at them for being too thin. Seriously WTF?
And, of course, being that wafer-thin means no boobs, so implants are required. Or, as is now the trend in Hollywood, the poor actresses who do happen to have some cleavage are getting breast reductions!! (Jennifer Connelly leaps to mind) Because the andrgenous look is what keeps them working. *head desk*
Look at photos of Marilyn Munroe - all womanly hips and breasts - she would be laughed out of Hollywood today for being horrifically fat.
Which, in my mind is silly and tragic. Women have hips. Women have breasts. They have been designed by nature (or God) to bare children and need hips and breasts to do so. Yet it is the pre-pubescent girl figure that is held up as the ideal, which I find extremely disturbing.
It's not just girls either. The ideal male must either be musclebound or boyish, both with no bodyhair (again with the pre-pubescent).
Why is this? The paedophilic overtones creep me out, and I can't help feeling it's like some weird sort of anti-promotion of sexuality - we're not permitted to show you images of sexually mature males and females because, godforbid, you might think about sex! But we want to use sex to sell our product so we'll use models who look pre-pubescent so that you don't notice. O.o *sigh*
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My 9 yr. old son worries about being fat - this the kid who is in perpetual motion and I have to buy everything in slim sizes already because he is very wiry build.
We are leaving a very sick legacy to the next generation if we don't expose this cult continuously!
*rant over - slinks away*
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Leela's right: the model in this pic is unreal.
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Interesting analysis of the way the light was falling. Even knowing that pictures can be altered, I wouldn't have caught it because I don't observe the way light falls particularly well.
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http://www.plagueangel.net/grotto/id2.html
full of pictures glorifying women who look like they've just exited Auschwitz. I honestly don't understand what's happened. Women like Marilyn Monroe were sexy, they had sexy bodies. These skin and bone types look like coked out 12 year olds.
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Yes, even models photos are altered. Nearly every year they do that SI Swimsuit 'behind the scenes' show. Their photos always take out an inch or so of thigh, alter the arch of the behind, etc.
I believe there has been a huge push in our culture to sexualize children (the pedophilic overtones you refer to) and the look is also a part of that. No breasts, no curves, no hair. Girls who look like boys, boys who look pretty.
When one opens their eyes to it, you can see it everywhere.
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As for the photoshopping....gaah, you're so right! They do it all the time. I even remember seeing an episode of Oprah where she showed a magazine shot of her and pointed out all the parts that some editor had 'altered' without her knowledge. I remember her being like "Look at that! THat is NOT My arm!" They had, of course, made it thinnner.
And then there was that spread that Jamie Lee Curtis did a few years ago. The one where she insisted on being photographed as she *really* was. Meaning, she posed in her every day clothes, without make up, and she specifically stated that her photos were not to be airbrushed in any way.
And the truth is? Yeah, ha ha, she looked kinda bad. But only 'kinda bad' in comparison to the faked up way they usually made her look. In reality, she looked like a normal, everyday woman. Someone you'd live next door to and bitch about your kids with. Anyways, I always thought that was really cool of her to do. Especially since there are other celebs who throw fits if you happen to photograph them from the wrong side. I guess it was her way of trying to get the message out about the 'unrealistic ideal'. Or whatever.
I used to have much more interesting things to say about this, but my sociology major seems to have faded from my brain. ;)
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I'm trying to loose weight for health reasons, and I talked to a trainer. She told me I should weigh 118 to 114 pounds. I turned to her and said "Really? because the last time I weighed 118, my doctor told me if I dropped three more pounds he'd reccommend me for eating disorder counsling."
She back tracked really quickly on my "ideal" weight but I was shocked that I was being told, by a nutritionist no less, to strive for a weight that my doctor had been concerned about!
I was watching another show and this stylist was complimenting Mary-Kate about her new "adult" figure and for "loosing the baby-fat."
This show had been taped prior to Mary-Kate (I hope that's the right onew) admitting the eating disorder but it was funny/sad to see the compliments she got before she came out with how she'd lost the weight -_-
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This is one of a portfolio shot of a woman made to look younger
Here is an altered model wearing a bikini
Men are no exception!
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And I felt guilty for airbrushing a pimple out of a shot of me once...
I loved the guy whose hair got taller. It was like he was storing extra hair under his sweater, and the photographer just unstuffed it.
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Once I learned a little about Photoshop I completely believed how easy it was to crop the hell out of someone.
And the sad part is that even when you say "oh, men don't want that" I don't think that is as true as it used to be. I think it's starting to rub off on them too.
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May I link to this when I update my journal next time?
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A friend of mine found this as an example of all the airbrushing for a magazine cover:
http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/retouch/index.html
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I have no words.
And thank you.
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But I'm sure that if I lived in a Marilyn Monroe era, I would feel better about myself...
*sigh* now i'm hungry.. XD
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And it really is amazing to see what trainers say or the Army wants your weight to be at and what your doctor says is unhealthy. I am in the Army National Guard and for a 21 year old female at 5'2" the weight they want you to be at the most 118. My doctor said that to be healthy, you can weight up to 135. 118 to 135 is a big difference.
And it's nice to see what they really do to those pictures. It is really sad to know that a super skinny model still isn't even skinny enough. That is why girls who 20 years ago wouldn't be considered fat feel awful and are made fun of because they are "fat".
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Thank you. I feel much better now ;) It's often been told me, when I was growing up (I was one of the unfortunate early developers) that if I were a teen/adult in the fourties or fifties, I'd be quite alright, but I'm overweight in today's vision.
This promotion of pre-pubescent isn't the half of it either - it's just encouraging poor manipulatable (because I couldn't think of the word) teens to be unhealthy. And that's just bad.
*kicks today's advertisers* idiots.
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And THIS...the very first section of this just pisses me off: http://www.angry.net/people/s/skinny_people.htm Vile, hateful, stereotyping. Obviously, skinny girls are in love with themselves an think they're awesome, even when wishing they had the chests of curvier girls. I mean, no one prefers curvier girls!
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I'm bigger now, but I used to be skinny, and got the "Oh you look like you never eat" stereotype, even though I ate a LOT! As well as the "ewww...your hips stick out...have you been sick?" I was just a very active young woman, not sick! Now I get the "Oh, look at these pictures when you were thin and pretty." WHAT? Just because I am bigger now, doesn't make me not pretty. Even now, I hear bigger women say terrible things about women who are thinner. Most recently, "People ignore you when you're fat, but they're nice to skinny girls. Why is that? I hate skinny girls for that." I told her when *I* was skinny, I was ignored a lot, but now that I'm bigger, people talk to me. HOWEVER, the reason people ignored me then and talk to me now is my PERSONALITY, not my WEIGHT.
However, magazines definately go too far with "perfection." Perfect teeth, perfect skin, perfect age, perfect perceived weight...
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Variety is gorgeous
I totally agree! But tell that to the advertisers. Which throws the ball right back at the consumers, because advertisers only use what sells.
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I just wanted to add that I had similar problems as a child. 5'8" by the time I was 11, taller even than all the teachers at my school! and nicknamed 'Lurch' (Addams Family was popular at the time) by friends who barely reached my shoulders. I remember wearing jumpers in summer because my collar bones stuck out so much and I thought they were ugly. :~\ *sigh*
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A good link.
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All your comments have got me once again furious at the western world's obsession with weight, whether it's telling people that they're too fat or too thin. I myself worry sometimes that I am too thin, but for health reasons, not image reasons. I never knew that models were airbrushed and photoshopped that way and it disgusts me. I just prey that J.K. doesn't go quiet on this issue.
Something needs to be done.