viz.

Image Credit: The Illusionists.org 

The pervasive use of photoshopped images in advertisements and magazine features has stirred up a veritable maelstrom of debate over the ethics and legality of image manipulation. On Monday, CBS News published an article on the British government's decision to meet with "advertisers, fashion editors, and health experts to discuss how to curb the practice of airbrushing and promote body confidence among girls and women."

Over the last year, British and French politicians have debated whether photoshopped images used in advertisements should be required to feature a digital modification disclaimer. Next month, several British politicians will argue that labeling airbrushed photos will make it clear that the images are mere "digital fantasies."

The image above is from the promotional materials for a project-in-progress by filmmaker Elena Rossini entitled The Illusionists. Rossini's documentary will seek to locate "the obsession over the pursuit of fairness, youth, and thinness for women - and the exaltation of those qualities," in a "deep rooted fear in the power of confident, mature women" and will seek to explore the ways that such expectations function as "one of the most effective weapons used...to stifle women's advancement and thus maintain the status quo."

The real issue, as identified by Rossini in her proposal, is one of age and impressionability. From youth onwards advertisers and fashion mavens attempt to train us (increasingly through the use of altered images) to associate diversity and age with unattractiveness, and whiteness, youth, and thinness with beauty.

Rossini's stance is akin to that articulated by Jo Swinton, a member of British parliament, in September 2009. Swinton proposed that modified photos should be banned "entirely in ads aimed at children under 16" according to the New York Times. Swinton explains that photoshopped ads lacking disclaimers may cause "teenagers and women" to feel "unhappy with themselves." The kind of digitized perfection made possible by photoshopping, demonstrated below in a video from the Dove "Real Beauty" Campaign, is utterly impossible to achieve in reality: 

Video Credit: Dove Real Beauty Campaign

The Liberal Democratic Party, of which Swinson is a member, adopted her proposal into their official platform a year ago and is planning to take action next month. Similar legislation was proposed in September of 2009 in the French National Assembly by Valerie Boyer (U.M.P), who claimed that photoshopped images "can lead people to believe in realities that very often, do not exist" (Times). According to the 2009 article, Boyer called for warning labels on retouched photos used for "editorial purposes as well as on those in print ads" and would threaten violators with finds of 37,500 euros (currently $49,676) or "as much as 50 percent of the cost of an advertisement."

In Monday's CBS article, a number of European health professionals sounded in on the issue including Susan Ringwood, chief executive of Beat, a British charity focused on eating disorder awareness, and Dr. Adrienne Key of Britain's Royal College of Psychiatrists. Both suggested that the inclusion of legally mandated disclaimers on photoshopped images might help to counteract their ability to function as triggers or cues for individuals with eating disorders. Dr. Key points out that the link between "repeated exposure of thin or perfect bodies" and "a drop in mood, more dissatisfaction in the viewers' bodies, and drastic dieting behavior" is increasingly supported by research. Indeed, depictions of extreme (and digitally enhanced) thinness or, as the feminist blog in the Gawker family, Jezebel.com, has waged an ongoing anti-airbrushing campaign to demonstrate, the reduction or elimination of bones from models in store catalog item images and promotional campaigns, grant viewers - regardless of whether or not they believe these often startling images to be realistic - an open invitation for self-criticism.

Image Credit: Ann Taylor, by way of Jezebel.com

Dodai Stewart of Jezebel poses her apt take on the issue in a response to Monday's CBS article, asking whether it "won't...take more than legislation to correct how we currently look at women's bodies?" Stewart writes that "although extensive Photoshop is detrimental - magazine editors and advertisers are, essentially, lying to us, the public - the real problem is that what we consider 'attractive' has also become, for the most part, unattainable." She calls for a broader campaign, extending beyond legislation (though that "would be great"), and "demanding diversity," "offering feedback" and relying on consumers "cognizan[ce]of the brands we support."

Jezebel's insistence on raising awareness of the widespread use (and abuse) of photoshopping in promotional materials and their refusal to bow down to the demands of corporations to obscure their attempts at misrepresenting human figures and elevating unattainably "desirable" beauty standards is a step towards a broader realization of the effects of visual manipulation upon self-image, perceptions of beauty, and body confidence.