So, while wasting time online (as I am wont to do) I came across this article: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/beauty/were-the-quot-real-quot-women-dove-ads-airbrushed-the-air-brusher-says-yes-dove-says-no-168010;_ylt=AsNkyPCmPW4gyok5goCYUqNpbqU5
Basically, a little piece about how those lovely ladies in the Dove "Real Women" Ads--you know the one, the "Hey, it's ok you aren't super-thin or have perfect proportions or are in the magic 18-21 age range of media-epitomized female beauty! You're still hot!" were, in fact, retouched. Dove says they weren't. The cat who does all the retouching says they were.
I personally don't know just how to feel about this.
On the one hand, the ads meaning meant the same thing. Of course they were airbrushed, because EVERYBODY in magazines and (although perhaps to a lesser extent) telly are airbrushed. It'd look funny, if not disproportionately grotesque, next to all the perfect, retouched people. Yet, these women still looked realistic. Dove was telling us--and it's sad that we need telling--that if you're healthy and happy, you'll look good. Hell, there's always going to be SOMEONE out there who thinks you're drop-dead gorge, and someone who thinks you're a heinous abomination. And there's a load of other people who don't feel anything towards you, and would like you to leave them alone so they can go back to cooking eggs.
On the other hand--if it ISN'T a big deal, why was Dove so grouchily adamant that the Very Famous Retoucher was a Very Famous Fibber? Do they actually believe that by admitting that, say, they may have smoothed the cellulite from one chickie's hips, that they truly believe that women AREN'T good enough, just the way they are? Is this just another way that our culture likes to undermine women, because undermining people is by and large our national pastime?
I don't know. I don't think so. I am someone who has been blessed with very good skin, but I am also someone who has (among many, many other, non-physical flaws) cellulite on that part of me that turns from "leg" to "butt". I have a lot of moles. I have, because of my serious love affair with carbs and despite my continual efforts to battle it with exercise, back fat and a "beer baby". My arms and hands are much more tan than my face and neck, because I won't shell out the kind of money on body sunblock that I will on face sunblock. There are a lot of things about myself that I would retouch if I were clever enough (or not too cheap to buy a copy of Photoshop) to. But I haven't.
I don't think that any of the other bloggers I have followed in the past or follow now, the women I admire, the lovely, gutsy, fashionable chicks, are any less lovely, gutsy, and fashionable because they do or do not retouch the photos they choose to share with the world. I do not argue with their reasons for wanting to or not wanting to. They're still lovely. I'm sure they are in person even more lovely. Just as I'm sure all the women from the Dove ads and television stars and celebrities are still quite lovely in person*, they're just much more "real" looking.
I think that most women know--although it's incredibly hard to change that little bitchy voice in your head that tells you otherwise--that the women we see in magazines and on telly and in movies are fairytales. We know that there has been alterations to make them look so fab--whether or not it's Drag-grade cosmetics, digital retouching, incredibly flattering lighting done by someone who's only job is to create incredibly flattering lighting, or any of the other myriad tricks that people who work with film have been using since film has existed to make women (and men, I notice you gentlemen have some rather unrealistic images of you out there as well) look impossibly perfect.
That doesn't change the constant pressure all women (and men) feel at some point to fit into a mold of perfection. But I do think most people deserve a little more credit than they get from advertisers for noticing what is realistic and what isn't. And those Dove gals--they're realistic enough for me.
*I have met three famous people in person, although one wasn't exactly famous and one wasn't exactly a meeting. I shook hands with Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was governor of California. On that same school trip, Adam Sandler was in the capitol for the first day of Hanukkah (I don't know, I guess it's a Thing at the capitol building) and he waved at my tour group, who didn't think it was actually him until he waved, and Dexter from Criss Angel's Mindfreak (he was a FX guy who blew stuff up) and his wife used to come into the Quiznos that I used to work at from time to time. None of them look how they do on film. Mr. Schwarzenegger is shorter than I am...
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