Photo Manipulation and its Effects on Young Women

As someone who has once struggled with an eating disorder, I find the way women to be portrayed in the media absolutely disturbing.  Even more disturbing is that the way women are portrayed is not natural - photo manipulation is huge within the media, the fashion industry especially.  Many studies have determined that exposure to the "thin" ideal that is exposed in media images have been a huge attribute in the development of eating disorders.  Something called "thinspiration" or "thinspo" for short, has become a highly dangerous thing to girls looking to improve their bodies.  Thinspo, usually in the form of an online blog, includes pictures of extremely thin and underweight women- and many images come from fashion photographs. Almost 15% of high school girls have reported not eating in a 24 hour period in order to lose weight.

Seventeen Magazine recently released a statement vowing to "celebrate every kind of beauty." The magazine's editor in chief and the entire staff signed a promise to never change girls' body or face shapes in their photography and only include healthy models and girls.  I really support Seventeen's decision and applaud the 14 year old girl who originally campaigned for the encouragement of all women body types and less photo manipulation.


Something that caught my eye was that in 2010, a plus sized model by the name of Crystal Renn had posed for a spread in French Vogue and her figure was trimmed down excessively; Renn had been famous for her struggle with anoerxia in her beginning years as a model, and for these images to be released caused extreme controversy.  Renn spoke out against the photographs, clearly unaware that her photos were going to be manipulated to such an extent, and upset that her body was manipulated to the slim body that had once been a very real danger to her life.
The photo that sparked controversy:

Crystal's real body:

That happened in 2010.  In 2009, France parliment actually had legislation proposed that all retouched images in media advertisting actually be labeled that they were.  Would a label even change anything? I don't think so, because just a label does not let the viewer know to what extent the image was manipulated.

Why does this happen? One website explains :

"In the end people buy these magazines because they want this imaginary perfection. And so from the standpoint of the fashion and beauty industry, everyone benefits from retouching photos, so why change the arrangement? This is the problem. The product looks better so the client is happy, the models look immaculate so the their career is advanced, the customers get their dose of heightened beauty so they keep buying the magazines, thus the publisher is happy, and so on in an endless loop."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2099638/Anorexia-sufferers-thinspiration-diaries-explain-worrying-motivations.html
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/after-petition-drive-seventeen-magazine-commits-to-show-girls-as-they-really-are/
http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/ethicalinquiry/2012/August.html
http://buquad.com/2010/10/24/digital-manipulation-in-the-fashion-industry/
http://mediapracticesbjorn.blogspot.com/2011/02/image-manipulation-in-fashion-industry.html

Homework Composite

Classwork- Composite 5 images from google

Philly Collage

Pictures from my Adventures in Philadelphia

Italian market - Carl's

Chinatown

Gideon, my newphew

U Got Munchies

Magnet I bought on South Street

Response to Larry Lessig's "How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law"

Larry's three example that shaped his argument did so in a manner that was easy to follow.  I hold the same views as Larry, and I thought this speech still applys today, though it was made five years ago.  Copyrights extend too far, and determining what is and what isn't "copied" has become too extreme.  How far is too far, when it comes to piracy and plagiarism? The youtube videos created by users that mixed content with music, for example - an entirely original creation, but with content that is not originally theirs.  I think that is someone claims the content that is not theirs to be theirs, then legal action should be taken place, but is that too tedious for those wishing to weed out what was stolen?  And is anyone making profit?  Maybe, if a youtube video has enough views and the user allows ads on the video, it is making a profit, but what about sharing files through the internet?  No one is making a profit, but I suppose the person that owns the material isn't making a profit either, so that causes the law to step in.

People create.  People who create are artists.  Artists do not want their work copied.  I can see how copyrights work - I wouldn't want someone to create something exactly like my artwork, or steal my artwork - and claim it as their own original idea.  But what if my artwork was all over the internet, and someone printed out a picture of it, cut it up, and recreated it into a collage.  Is that copying?  No, it's creating something entirely new -  So many things have been created and continue to be created, it's a miracle that new ideas and creations still form, even if they are influenced by something that was already created.