Photoshop, self-confidence, and gender equality

France to ban Photoshopping? Because people don't have enough to worry about, the French have decided to step in and say "Enough is enough! Photoshopping is wrong!" They believe that the images that are displayed cause young girls to have an unrealistic body image, and thus resort to anorexia and bulemia. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but I'm sorry kids, it's human nature to idealize and idolize. As long as there has been artists in the world, there have been idyllic models. Yeah sure you don't see a whole lot of people whining and moaning about the work of Botticelli giving women an unrealistic expectation about the female form. At the same time, that was the image of beauty THEN.

Guess what? These things CHANGE. That's right, what we consider beautiful now will be different in another ten years. If you don't believe me go back and look at your grade school yearbooks, then your high school yearbooks. Look at your hairstyle, do you really believe that looks good? You might've when you did it.

So basically, they're saying that they'll be charging close to $50,000.00 to anyone who creates a Photoshopped image in: "newspaper and magazine advertising, press photos, product packaging, political campaigns and art photography."

Translation from the bullshit: Anywhere.

And so, if you want to create an image in Photoshop and display it in France, it will be required to have a warning on it saying that the image was edited using graphic software and that "Objects in the Print may be larger than they appear." God, do I love the stupid people, they make the world go round. To boil this down even further, if you send an edited image into France, it has to have a warning on it, like a pack of cigarettes. I've got a better idea, how about we just change our standards a little bit and promote intelligence? Teach our kids that not everything they see is real, and give them a little self-respect to be who they are as opposed to the clones they strive to be?

Eh, I know it'll never work. That would require parents to talk to their kids for a change.

Something else that bothers me: Everyone is so focused on little girls having a bad body image. What about the boys? As we grow older, we understand that we're less desirable than whatever putz is on the screen showing off six-pack abs. They Photoshop men in the Fitness magazines too. You think they stay in business because they have a new "Flat-abs in six weeks." diet every month? Jeezus, they don't even have time to get the first flat-abs diet done before they're posting the new one, so you really think guys are all that self-confident? Nah we hide it under a false showing of bravado; we're just as insecure, maybe more so, we're just better about lying about it. I mean hell, look at all the advertisements we're exposed to about the size of our genitals! I get 50 emails a day that want me to extend, expand, lengthen, widen, harden my penis. If I listen to the radio, I hear a sultry voice telling me that I need to increase my girth, and I hear a guy talking about how taking another product has made him dependent on taking this product to perform sexually (I'm not sure that's such a great selling point). Granted the media doesn't really like men to begin with. Look at gender roles in advertising: You see a man, vexed at his health problems attempting to figure out why it is he must eat a bowl of high-fiber cardboard first thing in the morning so that he can be regular. In walks his beautiful and intelligent wife. He is flummoxed by the sheer concept of fiber=regularity, she has all the answers. Man dumb, woman smart. Later, they'll show a man attempting to do work on his home. He is clumsy, awkward and obviously incapable of performing the task at hand, so what do they do? Cut to the beautiful, intelligent wife, that has all the answers and knows which professional to call because her idiot husband is obviously so out of his element he would never think to call a professional on his own. Advertising isn't the only one that displays this. Look at the sitcom. Over the years the father figure has been increasingly reduced in his role, and instead of the person that the family looks to for answers, the man is reduced to being the punchline. Usually, the situation the family is placed in is because the male head of the household is incompetent, greedy, lecherous, and needs his wife to save him from himself.

So I propose this: If France does, in fact, require a warning label stating that an image has been enhanced in Photoshop or some other digital editing device, we require all advertising to say "You're okay exactly the way you are." Or "All men are not morons, they are simply depicted in this way because the writers are too afraid of feminist groups complaining about the female lead occasionally making a mistake."

Just my two cents and I'm hoping for change,
X.