Body Image
2006-02-22
I've been following a debate on Adrian's website, in the comments for this post and then the whole of this post. The argument is about the pressure society and the media exert on women to conform to an unreasonable image of 'perfection'; I haven't commented on either of the threads there - I don't really have anything to add over what's already been said - so I thought I'd bring it back here for a little summation and some slightly related comments.
In particular I wanted to bring more attention to this link, as posted by Nuge. Go there now, and go through the flash toy. I'll wait for you.
...
See what I mean?
Looking through it step by step, I can see how most of the changes would make her more attractive. Hell, I can consider her to be more attractive after some of the steps. But eventually I agree with Dan when he says that she looked better beforehand. Go back to the flash toy and find the screen with the 'before/after' button and just flick her back and forth, see if you agree.
With their lighting tricks, their careful composition and their post-shoot manipulation (airbrushing and more recently 'photoshopping'), the fashion industry and various related media perpetuate and evolve an image of human perfection beyond what is actually possible. It's easy to ignore that, and class those people as some sort of fantasy that you can look at because you wouldn't get them anyway, and it's only this argument Adrian has on his hands that has made me realise how dangerous that attitude is.
They're not real, of course they aren't. The images may be of real people, but they're people as characters still; artificially manipulated perfect-people characters. With any luck, the models are off somewhere having sensible relationships with people who appreciate them for who they are without the make-up, the lighting and the post-shoot retouching. But while the media continues to pump out the perfect pictures, it doesn't matter that the perfect people aren't real people. Offering women images of the perfect people encourages them to aspire to that, and a lot of organisations stand to profit from that aspiration. Show the perfect people to men, and chances are they'll find them attractive, and whether or not they do so in an 'idle fantasy' way it will put further pressure on women to be like them.
Let's go back to the flash toy.
The thing that really got me is on the 'why we did this' page. I've always been pretty bad at guessing ages, on top of which there are certain scenarios in which I just assume an age range based on context and leave it at that. Which is why I was surprised to find that the model in the demonstration is 14.
Fourteen!-
With thanks to Dan for the useful new emphasis ;-)
Now, clearly the artificially attractive people aren't about balanced emotional relationships. The media isn't encouraging women to hone their Good Sense of Humour, nor is it suggesting that men should be looking for women that they can talk to for hours on end; it's presenting the kind of imagery the 'I'd do her' crowd wants, and making women feel like they should conform to it.
And getting people ready for the 'I'd do her' crowd in their early teens is just twisted.
Up until yesterday I turned my back on this because I felt like Adrian does/did; these people have no bearing on my reality, and hence no effect on the real world. Now I realise they do; the real world isn't built on people like me. 'Rome is the Mob', as they said (give or take a few words) in Gladiator.
So now I'll add it to the big list of things I recognise as being wrong with society, but that I don't really know what I can do about.
I don't normally pay much attention to the media, and that isn't set to change any time soon. Some of the artificially attractive people are attractive, and I don't like the fact that I find them so; although to be fair a lot of the tricks are programmed in a lot deeper than social engineering. But at the end of the day, I can't enjoy spending time with a media-spawned caricature, so I'll always be more interested in real people, of the kind who can smile at me - not at camera, at me - and laugh at me (or perhaps with me would be preferred) and so on. And in case anyone reading wants to hear it, I know that while my saying so may be a little uncommon, that attitude isn't: most men have got it somewhere, no matter how much they need to hide it from each other. And the ones who don't have it aren't worth your time.
Right, open for comments. What important facts have I missed this time?
In particular I wanted to bring more attention to this link, as posted by Nuge. Go there now, and go through the flash toy. I'll wait for you.
...
See what I mean?
Looking through it step by step, I can see how most of the changes would make her more attractive. Hell, I can consider her to be more attractive after some of the steps. But eventually I agree with Dan when he says that she looked better beforehand. Go back to the flash toy and find the screen with the 'before/after' button and just flick her back and forth, see if you agree.
With their lighting tricks, their careful composition and their post-shoot manipulation (airbrushing and more recently 'photoshopping'), the fashion industry and various related media perpetuate and evolve an image of human perfection beyond what is actually possible. It's easy to ignore that, and class those people as some sort of fantasy that you can look at because you wouldn't get them anyway, and it's only this argument Adrian has on his hands that has made me realise how dangerous that attitude is.
They're not real, of course they aren't. The images may be of real people, but they're people as characters still; artificially manipulated perfect-people characters. With any luck, the models are off somewhere having sensible relationships with people who appreciate them for who they are without the make-up, the lighting and the post-shoot retouching. But while the media continues to pump out the perfect pictures, it doesn't matter that the perfect people aren't real people. Offering women images of the perfect people encourages them to aspire to that, and a lot of organisations stand to profit from that aspiration. Show the perfect people to men, and chances are they'll find them attractive, and whether or not they do so in an 'idle fantasy' way it will put further pressure on women to be like them.
Let's go back to the flash toy.
The thing that really got me is on the 'why we did this' page. I've always been pretty bad at guessing ages, on top of which there are certain scenarios in which I just assume an age range based on context and leave it at that. Which is why I was surprised to find that the model in the demonstration is 14.
Fourteen!-
With thanks to Dan for the useful new emphasis ;-)
Now, clearly the artificially attractive people aren't about balanced emotional relationships. The media isn't encouraging women to hone their Good Sense of Humour, nor is it suggesting that men should be looking for women that they can talk to for hours on end; it's presenting the kind of imagery the 'I'd do her' crowd wants, and making women feel like they should conform to it.
And getting people ready for the 'I'd do her' crowd in their early teens is just twisted.
Up until yesterday I turned my back on this because I felt like Adrian does/did; these people have no bearing on my reality, and hence no effect on the real world. Now I realise they do; the real world isn't built on people like me. 'Rome is the Mob', as they said (give or take a few words) in Gladiator.
So now I'll add it to the big list of things I recognise as being wrong with society, but that I don't really know what I can do about.
I don't normally pay much attention to the media, and that isn't set to change any time soon. Some of the artificially attractive people are attractive, and I don't like the fact that I find them so; although to be fair a lot of the tricks are programmed in a lot deeper than social engineering. But at the end of the day, I can't enjoy spending time with a media-spawned caricature, so I'll always be more interested in real people, of the kind who can smile at me - not at camera, at me - and laugh at me (or perhaps with me would be preferred) and so on. And in case anyone reading wants to hear it, I know that while my saying so may be a little uncommon, that attitude isn't: most men have got it somewhere, no matter how much they need to hide it from each other. And the ones who don't have it aren't worth your time.
Right, open for comments. What important facts have I missed this time?
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