The Effects of Photo Manipulation in the Media

The cosmetics company L'Oreal recently ran an advertisement featuring the actress Julia Roberts. After investigation, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority banned the ad from release in the UK. The ad contained no nudity or any other offending content, just the flawless face of the 44-year-old Roberts without a single sign of aging.

The ad was pulled because the product being sold did not cause the perfection of the actress's skin; this effect was achieved by means of digital airbrushing, a technique commonly used in advertising that makes an already beautiful person appear perfect beyond what is humanly possible.

While it is clear that companies want to link their products with attractive people (the basis of the entire modeling industry), the struggle to feature the best-looking people has been altered with the widespread use of image manipulation programs like Photoshop. Now it is no longer enough to feature a naturally attractive celebrity or model; these images must be put through the computer and edited to achieve an ideal of perfection dictated by the person doing the editing.

Occasionally this results in some outrageous images: the Ralph Lauren clothing company faced scrutiny after featuring almost comically edited images of two models. The retouched photographs featured heads the same size as the models' waists, hands wider than their thighs, and shoulders much wider than their hips. While this is an example of a company pushing digital editing beyond what the public will stand, most of the time photo manipulation in advertising is accepted with little criticism.

The fact that these images are so widely accepted is becoming a mental health issue. Psychological studies have shown a positive correlation between media exposure and female body dissatisfaction. An article in the Psychological Bulletin states that "…the images of women presented in the media today are thinner than past media images of women, thinner than the actual female population, and often thinner than the criteria for anorexia."

While this study does not speak specifically about photo manipulation, its findings clearly apply, raising two questions. First, if already thin models are being manipulated to look even thinner, beyond what is humanly possible (as in the Ralph Lauren ads), then would this not only further female body dissatisfaction? Second, if models being used are often thinner than the criteria for anorexia, then why do they look so healthy?

Former editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine Leah Hardy answers the second question in an article published in the Daily Mail. In this article, Hardy tells of dangerously anorexic models coming in for shoots with dark circles under their eyes, pale skin, and protruding ribs. Instead of refusing to shoot the models, the magazine had its editors add a bit of flesh to their bones (while preserving their overall thinness), "freshen" their face and eyes, and add a glow to their skin. Suddenly, they were not sickly; they were goddesses incarnate.

Leah Hardy recalls feeling guilty after doing such an editing job. She states " ... for all our retouching, it was still clear to the reader that these women were very, very thin. But, hey, they still looked great! Thanks to retouching, our readers … never saw the horrible, hungry downside of skinny. That these underweight girls didn't look glamorous in the flesh."

The exposure to manipulated images causes women to idealize a dangerous standard of beauty, one that can only exist through technology. No longer satisfied with what nature can give them, they seek ways to look like the women in magazines, often sacrificing their health in the process.

The exposure to such imagery does not only make women feel unattractive, however. Men exposed to the same images may begin to see the average female as unsuitable for dating. According to a study conducted by Douglas T. Kenrick and Sara E. Gutierres, exposure to highly attractive female stimuli caused males to rate the average female as less attractive when compared to men in the control group who had not viewed the highly attractive images beforehand.

Kenrick and Guitierres conclude, "The present results support the suggestion that our initial impressions of potential romantic partners will be adversely affected if we happen to have been recently exposed to posters, magazines, television, or movies showing highly attractive individuals." (Kenrick and Gutierres 1980). Since the majority of Americans are exposed to one or more of these media daily, it follows that a number of men are dissatisfied with the physical attractiveness of the average woman. Add photo editing into this, and the standards of beauty go from elevated to impossible. Rather than looking for a person, they seek a cartoon.

Sources:

1.Grabe, Shelly, L. Monique Ward, and Janet Shibley- Hyde. "The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies." Psychological Bulletin, 2008: 460-476.

2.Hardy, Leah. "A big fat (and very dangerous) lie: A former Cosmo editor lifts the lid on airbrushing skinny models to look healthy." The Daily Mail Online. May 20, 2010.

3.Kenrick, Douglas T., and Sara E. Gutierres. "Contrast Effects and Judgments of Physical Attractiveness: When Beauty Becomes a Problem." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1980: 131-140.

4. "Second Ralph Lauren model in Photoshop row as she's airbrushed to become impossibly skinny." The Daily Mail Online. October 21, 2009.

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