Is the new way for celebrities to reach out to the public to show us that although they have multi- million dollars, a body guard, and 6 summer homes in the French Wine Country, they really are like us? Hooray! Let us rejoice for celebs like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson who are revealing the real woman in them by shooting the makeup free and photoshop free pictures of themselves.
Pictures of both the photoshoped and “original” Britney Spears ad campaign for Candie’s have been released, and the difference between the two is subtle but has a big impact. Spears might be crazy, but one thing is for sure – she is not in desperate need of photoshoping. At first glance, when looking at the pictures side by side it is difficult to recognize the minute, yet effective changes. On closer observation, however, my jaw dropped as I noticed the slight change of her hip, thigh and butt.
Photoshop is not a new development especially in the world of fashion and magazines (remember the Tommy Hilfiger fiasco?) What is new is the blatant release of pre and post photoshoped pictures of Spears and the “natural” photo spread of Jessica Simpson in Marie Clare. I appreciate the message these celebrities are attempting to send to their females fans, although I am not sure if it is working.
A recent study, featured in the Telegraph, found that women feel “scared about being overweight without consciously thinking about their figure.”
“Neuroscientist Mark Allen said: ‘These women in our study had no history of eating disorders and project an attitude that they don’t care about body image.
‘Yet under the surface is an anxiety about getting fat and the centrality of body image to self.’
The motivation for this new study was to establish a point of reference among a control group of women who scored in the healthy range on eating disorder diagnostic tests.
Surprisingly, even this control group exhibited what Dr Allen calls “sub-clinical” issues with body image.
The results prompted Dr Allen to do the same tests on a healthy group of men but found they did not think about their own weight when looking at images of fat men.
Dr Allen said that the results showed that even confident, healthy women were much more likely to have eating disorders than men.”
Although these women’s brain activity doesn’t look like full-blown eating disorders, they are much closer to it than men are,” he said.Dr Allen said women are bombarded with messages that perpetuate the thin ideal, and the barrage changes how they view themselves.
Our technological generation has been bombarded with images of “petite” women literally since birth. The television became our baby sitter, numerous teen magazines became our social activity with friends, and while our generation is not the only one to have to deal with these issues by the sheer volume of media we “ingested” and are surrounded by, I believe is unique to our generation.
It is incredibly important for celebrities to speak out on these issues. Body dissatisfaction is an upsetting pandemic which needs to be turned around. The first step to stopping this problem is through the media. People are more receptive to messages when they are home, alone, starring at a television or computer screen. What other explanation can you give for the media being so influential in our culture. Sure, millions upon millions have watched as Tina Fey transformed into Sarah Palin on SNL but did anyone read Palin’s book to fully understand her?
Unfortunately, I do not foresee “au naturel” and prephotoshoped pictures becoming a Hollywood fad. I guess for now we are stuck watching Barbie dolls parade across our television and computer screens, magazines and thoughts. (Except for the occasional Spears and Simpson revelation)
Oh well, the world is going to end in 2012 anyway, why does it matter?
Related posts:
- Body image issues affect female collegiate athletes
- “Everybody” promotes positive body image
- Exercise bulimia overlooked
- Life after death: How celebrities linger on in public memory
- Myths About Eating Disorders
