Site Presented By
Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Because there is almost certainly a demand for it. And why would that be?
All together now...THE PATRIARCHY!
Now people will realize that they can't trust the pictures they see in magazines...if the prevalence of photoshop hadn't already tipped everyone off.
Perhaps, Rebecca, you should speak for yourself. This is a gross defamation of modern educated woman - that they are so weak in self worth, they let fashion mags do their thinking for them. It also says, BTW, that Madison Avenue far out trumps 30 years of mainstream feminisim, that Women's Studies has failed, that the patriarchy controls your MIND and your body...
It kinda says that chicks are stupid. See the above about recent studies regarding Engineering and Science.
Daily Affirmation, Rebecca: you are beautiful, too - just because you're YOU!
My first thought when I saw this on Feministing (and I'm not proud of this) was "Sweeeeeeet!" I hatehatehate having my picture taken; I don't think of myself as unattractive, but I'm not terribly photogenic, and the camera does indeed tend to add on pounds. Or so I tell myself...
Crap, I'm such a bad feminist...but sign me up!
Photoshop is not that new a piece of software, and even BEFORE Macintoshes and Photoshop, advertising art directors used photo retouching to do pretty much the same things -- create images of female beauty that are artificial and pretty much unobtainable....and then use these images to make us feel bad and egg us on to buy more stuff, i.e., moisturerizers or diet pills or girdles or what have you.
It's not entirely the patriarchy either -- magazines like Vogue have long had female editors-in-chief, like Diana Vreeland or Anna Wintour. Often I feel that it is women ourselves who are our own worst enemies. I personally know female fashion photographers (who would readily call themselves "feminists") and when I ask why they don't try, even subtlely, to effect some kind of changes -- to photograph more realistic looking models, for example -- they shrug and say "you just can't do that, it won't sell."
I don't think this is a trivial problem, because the same kind of standards are not lobbed at young men, and studies clearly show that young men and boys do not have the same kind of deadly self-esteem problems that young women and girls (really, all women) share. They certainly have not bought into the whole "dieting scam" mentality that dogs even women of great intellect and achievement in other areas of their lives.
The only bit of interest here is that what HP seems to have developed is an "automatic filter" for Photoshop, that instantly applies a "standard correction of thinness" to photographs of women (as opposed to the old hands-on approach). The implication is that ALL women need to be slimmed down, image-wise -- that even skinny models and actresses are "too fat".
This won't change until large masses of women stop buying into it.
Infinte Jest doesn't predict? This story has shades of "video-physiognomic dysphoria."
Sure, she's slimmer, but I think it added a good five years to her
If you turn the camera sideways, will it have the opposite effect?
Too bad that pic earlier this week of Jessica Valenti with Bill Clinton wasn't taken with that camera: it would have made her breasts smaller and Ann Althouse wouldn't have had as much to complain about....
I kind of want to vomit.
That's some crazy shit there. I hope no one ever does that to me.
If you'd like to send a letter to HP's CEO, go here: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/lyons.html
No photoshop isn't new, and yes, magazines edited by women have been presenting a distorted and pornographic ideal of female beauty for years. What makes this concerning, however, is that it seamlessly integrates the notion that everyone (particularly women, since HP only features women in their ad) should want to be thinner into the design of a mundane utilitarian object. This isn't a fancy camera designed for professionals, it isn't intended for use in magazine photos: it's designed so that every woman in America can distort her digital images to better conform to the social norm whilst recording her family's beach vacation or 4th of July picnic. It's not even on par with a skin lightening cream or a girdle, which fall into the realm of 'beauty products'... I can't think of a similar example where beauty standards are built in to a similar technology.
The thing is, I'm sure this feature doesn't work on photo subjects who are actually overweight, since you can't really stretch out a serious fat roll-- it only makes a difference if you have healthy body proportion and just want to look a teensy bit slimmer. Now, even if we avoid fashion magazines something as seemingly innocuous as a camera asks us "C'mon, don't you wanna lose five pounds?" The HP ad presents the answer to this question as an entirely self-evident "yes" even while demonstrating the effect on two models of apparently healthy body weight. It's like handing out a free girdle with the purchas of every dress size 8 and under. Oy vey.
Dear HP:
Because I have academic qualms about your new camera, i.e., your product reinforces notions I learned about in my womyn's study group, I must ask you to not allow others - who may not have such qualms, to be able to purchase this product and to please remove this product from the market. I realize that I can - right now, go out and buy makeup to hide blemishes, shoes to increase height, bras and other "body armor" to streamline my shape, I can get surgery to remove fat, tighten skin, etc, etc, I can go to a professional photographer who, utilizing light, shadow and choice of lens and filter, can make me look younger and more thin - this all before retouch, but your product in particular bothers me because it's not meant for a commercial application, and only "pros" should have access to digital manipulation that reinforce negative body image. Though I can never prove that digital manipulation of an image allows women to indulge in self hatred - any more than I can prove that thin models in magazines make women feel bad about themselves, I still prefer that this product is removed from the market - after all, what other point could I have in writing you? If I don't like it, it should not exist...
Thanks :)
The Wasilla soap opera just gets weirder as Palin complains critics are "picking apart a good point guard"
The media outlet's use of Bush euphemisms sparks a much-needed debate on journalistic standards.
And so are his Fox News pals, who lambasted Sen. Al Franken's "stolen election"
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it's not alone
Thanks for sharing, Governor. Now please take a cue from Norm Coleman, and go away
Salon headlines in your mailbox
