Filming her reflection
September 6, 2007This is Dutch documentary maker Sunny Bergman.
She made a documentary called “Beperkt Houdbaar“, a tag which you generally find on food products that you can only store for a few days. It’s the Dutch equivalent of the English “perishable” (thanks, Adam). This film deals with the pressure exerted by society and the media on women and girls to conform to a beauty standard - a beauty standard that does not exist, generally referred to as “The Playboy Look”. Sunny takes on cosmetic/plastic surgery and the photoshopping of models in all sorts of magazines.
The film is extremely unnerving, it makes you feel very uneasy - and a few times it even made me nauseous. The most… Unnerving, but at the same time touching scene is when Sunny goes for a consult at a very famous American plastic surgeon. While carrying the camera in her hand, filming her image in the mirror, she has her entire body examined by the surgeon - including her butt, her breasts, and even her vagina. The surgeon goes on and on, listing all the things that are wrong with her - and the costs of the various surgeries. Too much fat here, uneven this there, her vagina is wrong, her arms are wrong, her hips are wrong, everything’s wrong. All this time, she keeps on filming her reflection in the mirror.
When the surgeon leaves, she keeps on filming - she’s just standing there, camera on her shoulder, filming her reflection. For a few moments, she’s frozen. She doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch. And then, she moves her hand to her face, and gently wipes two tears from her eyes with her index finger. Then she says: “Somewhere, I did hope he would just say: ‘you’re beautiful, there’s nothing to be done about you’.”
And as a viewer, on the edge of your seat, you cringe. As a guy, even a slight feeling of guilt arises.
The documentary caused a reasonable stir in my country. Politicans are advocating a minimum age for cosmetic surgery patients, and Sunny herself has enacted two badges - “Photoshop Free” and “Photoshopped”. Various magazines in my country have joined this initiative, and will now print these badges if they do or do not photoshop the women/men in their pictures (excl. advertisements). Even Playboy said they would join the initiative, but backed out of it at the last moment.
I never realised photoshopping was so abundant - and I didn’t even know how easy it was to completely transform how people look on photos. I always was under the impression that they removed some cellulite here, a pimple there - but in fact, everything everywhere in a lot of magazines is photoshopped. Almost nothing is real anymore.
An eye opener. Watch this documentary. It will change the way you look at, well, everything. Sadly, in Dutch.
Funnily enough, in the past I started a thread on another board with a list of Photoshop retouching examples and tutorials … take a look at this for instance (takes a while for the Flash to load) -
http://demo.fb.se/e/girlpower/retouch/retouch/index.html
I believe that the “beauty” industry is largely something women propagate themselves rather than being solely down to pressure from men (however politically correct it would be to blame them).
Comment by Phil — September 6, 2007 @ 10:12 pm
Yes, Photoshop is used a lot. Nothing is real on the major magazines. Well, just like videographers use color grading to create a specific look… However, they don’t change how people actually look.
Comment by Eugenia — September 6, 2007 @ 11:53 pm
BTW, I am not against changing pictures of people with photoshop as long as the person has allowed that modification. I do not find it unethical, or a “craze of our times”. It’s normal for consumers to want to be watching something “perfect”. Because entertainment is all about taking you away from reality. And these providers do exactly that.
The same thing happens on ALL professional music we hear today. Voice pitches change, remixing puts the voice on top of another voice recording of the same person (which is not possible on a live performance for example), while digital effects can transform a person’s look. It’s all part of the game, and as I said, I don’t find it unethical.
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 8:35 am
The thing is, do consumers really want it?
Those pictures in magazines make women insecure about their appearance, it gives them a thing to look up to and aspire to that doesn’t even exist.
So, if a magazine wants to photoshop, fine, but I would love to see a government push to force magazines to reveal that they are using photoshop. In other words, the government should mandate the use of the badges. If a magazine doesn’t want to conform, they are banned from our market.
Comment by Administrator — September 7, 2007 @ 8:51 am
I agree that there should be a fine print somewhere explaining that some photoshoping has taken place. But other than that, I believe that consumers do want it, even if they won’t admit it or realize it. Proof is that providers had to do that in order to sell more.
As for having women feeling insecure just because another woman looks better than them, well let them feel insecure, and hopefully die out of insecurity, so their stupid genes don’t survive in the human gene pool. Let Darwin work his magic baby.
I am very short, I am fat, I have an ugly tooth (it’s out of alignment, and if you see me smiling from a specific side, it looks like I have no tooth there at all). And guess what: I don’t give a f*ck, neither I try to hide it by not smiling. It didn’t stop me from finding and getting married to a much prettier person than I am too. I have zero complex about my appearance, neither I try my best to look good. And all has worked out just fine, so why feel insecure?
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 9:14 am
As for having women feeling insecure just because another woman looks better than them, well let them feel insecure, and hopefully die out of insecurity, so their stupid genes don’t survive in the human gene pool. Let Darwin work his magic baby.
You obviously have absolutely not even the slightest idea about the psychological implications of stuff like this. I have never seen so much ignorance all crammed up into one single paragraph.
This has nothing to do with “a women looking better then them and feeling insecure because of it”. This has to do with the pressure exerted by society and the media on women to comply to a beauty image that simply does not exist - because it is achieved by manipulating imagery.
My mother has had one of her breasts removed because of the cancer, and this has had a major impact on her psychologically. Even though her first thought was “hey, it doesn’t matter”, she now does feel the implications of it - majorly. Yes, it makes her feel unpretty and insecure - and now she will have a reconstructive surgery done. So, according to you, her genes must die out? Your logic, as usual, is black and white, and only the way YOU feel about yourself is acceptable, and everyone else must conform to that - or die out.
Seriously. See the grey for once.
Comment by Administrator — September 7, 2007 @ 9:29 am
Your mother is a special case. She had to do something that she wouldn’t normally do, she lost a PART of her. It’s NOT the same as changing your appearance at will just to look beautiful. It’s a different case, so don’t mix things up.
>pressure exerted by society and the media on women
I am sorry, but I have never felt that “pressure”. I don’t CARE about what the media wants. I am ABOVE the “media” and “fashion”.
>to comply to a beauty image that simply does not exist
Exactly. It does not exist. It’s all in the minds of the people. And I will NOT comply to something that does not exist. It’s as simple as that.
I am a stronger person than this.
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 9:38 am
Exactly. It does not exist.
And how will people know it doesn’t exist if nowhere it is said that pictures are edited or not?
Exactly. So, in the end, ways of knowing if pictures are real or fake are needed, and hence, my government needs to step up and mandate it.
I am a stronger person than this.
Great, so am I. But, ehm, what about all the dieting? A few lbs over a target weight for your height is nothing to be afraid about, so what is it? I thought you were stronger than that?
Comment by Administrator — September 7, 2007 @ 9:48 am
> if nowhere it is said that pictures are edited or not?
Thom, learn to read. I wrote above that there SHOULD be a fine print for pictures that were retouched.
>A few lbs over a target weight
I am ~45 lbs above my correct weight for my height Thom, not just “a few lbs”. I am on a health risk. Ask for details before you write that. ;-)
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 9:52 am
>SHOULD be a fine print for pictures that were retouched.
And btw, the fine print should exist NOT because “women feel insecure” (give me a break), but because of legal issues that have to do with bounds of journalism. It’s a legal problem, not an ethical one.
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 9:54 am
Thom, learn to read. I wrote above that there SHOULD be a fine print for pictures that were retouched.
Eh, where did I say you didn’t? It was just a summation - “so, in the end” - as in, we agree.
I am ~45 lbs above my correct weight for my height Thom, not just “a few lbs�. I am on a health risk. Ask for details before you write that. ;-)
Well, get out more. Exercise.
Anyway, you’re 1.52m, right? That means you should weigh anywhere between 40 and 58kgs. 45lbs is 20kgs. You sure you weigh 78kgs?
Comment by Administrator — September 7, 2007 @ 10:01 am
I am 1.51m (but my passport says 1.55m, go figure). I am 72 kgs. My perfect weight would be at 46 kgs.
>Well, get out more. Exercise.
Bleh. :D
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 10:05 am
My perfect weight would be at 46 kgs.
Says who? The BMI puts you at a max. healthy weight of 58, and the BMI is pretty much accepted as the best way to determine stuff like this.
Comment by Administrator — September 7, 2007 @ 10:24 am
>The BMI puts you at a max. healthy weight of 58
I am a very short person so weight does not distribute well in my body. Anything above 52kgs and I look like a widescreen TV — as my brother calls me. I’ve being 58kgs you see, and the consensus was “lose weight”. Maybe I am light-boned. :)
Comment by Eugenia — September 7, 2007 @ 7:17 pm