Photoshopping Models: Dangerous or Artistic?

When Kate Winslet saw her photo on the cover of GQ, she got very upset. What she was was her face with a body that wasn’t her own. Her waist, legs, and other body parts were photoshopped to appear much slimmer than they actually were. After this incident, she was one of the first people to publically denounce the altering of women’s bodies in photos. Some people believe that this kind of photoshopping is detrimental to young girls, who can adopt unrealistic expectations of what a woman’s body should look like while others believe it is part of the artistic domain. Vivian Dillard discusses the potential for negative body images in the younger generation in “The Culture of Beauty,” written in 2013 when the movement against photoshopping was beginning.

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Recently, the American Medical Association (AMA) has taken the stand against the unrealistic beauty standards that the media is presenting. They believe that this idea of “body manipulation” can cause eating disorders and emotional problems.Countries such as France have already taken steps towards clearly defining the line between fiction and reality. They are required to label if their models have been photoshopped with the goal of ‘advising the public on whether what they are seeing is real or not.’ The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has had the goal of preventing false advertising since 1914, yet they still haven’t taken any steps similar to France towards preventing altered photos from being mistaken as reality. It seems strange to me that models can and want to manipulate their bodies in that way, but there are many people who don’t see an issue with photoshop.

Eating disorder specialist Carrie Arnold was skeptical about the AMA’s claims that photoshopped imaged caused eating disorders. She thought there was very little evidence to prove such a claim, commenting that ‘We don't think ads for disinfectant somehow promote OCD. We also don't think that those Bluetooth headsets promote schizophrenia because it looks like you're talking to yourself.’  Many photographers and artists are against the negativity surrounding photoshop because they see it as artistic liberty to alter photographs. Their original purpose, they claim, was just to highlight the features of the women. Others even claim that this focus on eliminating photoshop will make the situation worse as celebrities will go to extensive lengths, by using diets and plastic surgery, to appear the way they want if they cannot use photoshop.

Whether or not photoshopping models is a direct cause of eating disorders and negative self image is unclear. However, this does reflect the larger topic at hand, which is the near impossible beauty standards that America has developed. Companies advertising products such as clothes edit their models to fit beauty standards with the goal of selling more products. When a consumer sees impossibly beautiful women eating certain foods, wearing certain clothes, and supporting certain ideals, they want do what she does because she is the epitome of their ideal self.

Future Research: What countries have implemented laws to address the photoshopping issue? How do beauty standards based on the country?