11 Sep
More Body Image Controversy
I swear I am not on a crusade. I was ready to leave the whole Britney thing alone after yesterdays post. I had said my piece and made my point. And then I opened up Yahoo News and was hit with this headline:
Harshest Words Saved For Britney’s Body
In general it is a poorly written article wrapping up the “she’s fat” / “no she’s not” reactions to Sunday nights performance. Again I was ready to leave it alone until I saw this quote from Glamour Magazine executive editor-at-large, Suze Yalof Scwhartz.
“Girls aren’t looking as skinny this season as they did,” said Suze Yalof Scwhartz, executive editor-at-large for Glamour Magazine. “There’s food backstage. They’re looking sexier.” At Glamour, she noted, a model won’t be featured “if she shows too much clavicle.”
A lovely, yet all together hypocritical sentiment apparently. Recently a few keen observers spread around the blogesphere have noted that Glamour Magazine did an impressive Photoshop job on America Ferrera for their latest cover. Take a look at the pictures and you’ll notice her face and arms have been considerably thinned out.
While it does sound like America has lost some weight since the first photo was taken, there is no way those arms are her real arms.
I know Photoshopping covers is a common practice. In fact the company I work for has been asked more than once to Photoshop 10 or 15 lbs. off of a celebrity. It is something we do with no small amount of ridicule for said celebrity.
My ridicule turns to anger however, when a magazine like Glamour feels the need to “tighten up” and digital tone a women like America Farrar, a woman whose career has been built on the idea that every body is beautiful just the way it is.
This is a serious problem. Especially when the editor at large turns around and claims her magazine is part of the solution. Sorry Miss Scwhartz, if you continue practices like this you are just as big a part of the problem… maybe even a bigger part of the problem…than the hundreds of snippy reporters blasting away at Brittney for her paunch.
I now officially retire my soap box. I promise the rest of my post this week will be all about me!
Tony
9/11: 236.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
16.4 lbs. to go
Cross published at Guess How Much I Weigh
Posted by Israel on 11.09.07 at 8:47 am
i first saw this cover on another blog and was extremely disturbed by it. it really pisses me off to see this woman be “altered” in such a way. media and society are really starting to over do it.
plus, didnt the designers realize that they left her head looking super ginormous?
Posted by Summer on 11.09.07 at 8:47 am
I saw this Glamour cover in the airport Friday evening and couldn’t believe that’s the best their graphics people could do. At least if they’re going to Photoshop someone like that, they should do a clean job. They added almost two inches to the length of her neck in the process. It’s a shame they felt the need to alter a great and curvy figure in their “1st Annual Figure-Flattery Issue”.
Posted by Rick on 11.09.07 at 8:47 am
Tony, you’ve hit a home run with both of these posts. As an elementary school counselor, it scares me to see young girls “dieting”, often with the knowledge and consent of their parents. These are 9-, 10-, 11-year-old kids. Sure, we need to work to curb childhood obesity (a subject for another post), but these kids just need to eat healthy and get some exercise on a regular basis. That’s it. They don’t need to be comparing their pre-adolescent bodies to those of 20-something women with eating disorders. It’s an uphill battle with all of the images that are out there in the media.
Thanks for two great posts, Tony. Your passion for this subject really comes through in both of them.
Posted by sabriena on 11.09.07 at 8:47 am
I saw this cover just yesterday at the store. I couldn’t believe how much in poor taste this cover was. You look at something like this and can’t help but feel sad for the way things are heading. I think she looks fab unphotoshopped.
Posted by Kimberly on 11.09.07 at 8:47 am
This kinda reminds me of when Kate Winslet was photoshopped for a mag cover and she was livid about it. I am still at a loss to figure out or explain America’s (country, not actress) obsession with overly skinny women, then again, I am the same person that on a daily basis is at a loss as to what happened to the mystery of being a woman and not letting it all hang out.