Well, maybe the world is coming to some ‘real world’ reality that air brushing in ads has been destroying the world’s self image.
Recently a few politicians in France and Britain have been pushing around a plan to make advertisers label ads with a warning message stating that the pictures have been retouched. This plan actually agrees with me! Now as a visual person, an advertiser, and a painter, I am certainly the first one to love and study great design and the beauties of a nude women. Certainly the ad and art world have stylized the human form for many years, and we do need hyper reality sometimes. However media is now everywhere, and is being shown to young people constantly. Once upon a time, people would see these stylized pictures only sometimes (like in the Louvre) and there was limits on the technology. As a person and a parent, I am concerned for what these images are doing to people. I won’t go over the effects and causes, this debate is large and for another time. I am going to offer another limit and solution to airbrushing in ads. I think that ads, especially the fashion type ads, should state the age of the model (something like ‘Sarah, age 17′)!
Again I love beautiful women, but the ‘women’ that these superficial design people are portraying in ads are seldom women…..they are young girls (who are often anorexic)! I would go further and say that most of these girls look like young teen boys. Now I won’t tell you why ‘i think’ these design people use these boyish girls, as I am seldom politically correct in a debate. One only needs to look at the ‘environment’ of the design people to understand their design influences.
Now you might ask why I think the age of the model should be stated along with usage of airbrushing. Well it again comes back to everyone’s attraction to beautiful people. There is nothing wrong with adults (men or women) thinking a young person is beautiful, however, seeing the age would quantify and restrict the admiration. Turning it from jealousy and lust, to a mere appreciation and applause. For older women seeing these ads, they would begin to understand the impossibillity of trying to have the body of a teenager. For young teenage girls they would realize that these girls are likely younger than them, and that it is not some 25-35 year old women as portrayed uber-chic and succesful. Ultimately, these girls can grow up and age sensibly without unrealistic expectation on their body. Now for men, adding the age would also have an effect. Most men, especially young men, are known to be infatuated with girls and victims to their hormones. However, any sane man would quickly place their hormone in check if they knew the ‘25 year old looking’ girl in the ad was actually younger than their little sister and might be legally known as ‘jail bait’. Young men would quickly realize the nature of girls vs women in reality, and would quickly appreciate the ‘real’ full figured women. As they say in the ad business ‘Sex sells’. Once men began to truly appreciate the ‘real’ women, then true women could live a normal life without always second guessing their weight and trying to reach airbrushed goals. Now a world without superficial airbrushing would certainly achieve world peace, but Obama (or previously Bush) would need to find a bail out plan for the diet business (maybe too for ad people making diet and fitness equipment infomercials)!
Here is some more info on the French and British plans.
France May Put Warning Labels on Airbrushed Photos