This week, Hungarian singer Boggie released a music video that seeks to demonstrate how dramatically Photoshop can transform an image. In the video, Boggie sits in front of a camera, singing her song, while her entire profile is gradually morphed by the latest Photoshop technology.
Videos like Boggie’s are a desperate saving grace amid unrealistic representations of women that continue to promulgate unattainable standards of beauty.
Thankfully, it’s not the first time Photoshop has been forced under the spotlight. Assaults against the beautifying application have recently gained momentum.
Cartoon comedy South Park launched a smart, hilarious and satirical attack against the retouching issue in a recent season finale. In the episode, student Lisa Berger tried to make a political point about the damaging effects of Photoshop by retouching her own photo and posting it online. Much to her dismay, Lisa’s schoolmates miss the point entirely: The girls begin retouching their photos, and the boys only pay attention to girls if they match Photoshopped standards of beauty.
Then there’s the famous time-lapse video that was released in October. It shows how a model, dressed in nothing but a red thong, is drastically transformed by Photoshop; 37 seconds later, that model is almost unrecognizable.
Photoshop sends out the damaging message to women and girls that narrow hips; a gap between the thighs; smoky cat-eyes; long, tousled hair; a button nose; eyes as wide as saucers; and breasts like balloons are the entrance criteria for the arena of modern beauty.
We may as well call it the Hunger Games, because Photoshopped models these days are beginning to look like they could do with a good roast dinner.
Such impossible standards of female beauty have been around longer than Photoshop. My childhood was spent playing outside, drawing and playing with teddies. I was never encouraged to play with toys that were gender-specific. But Barbie, the iconic shepherdess of impossible, nimble beauty, continues to make her way into homes across the globe. Shocking research reveals that if Barbie were real, proportioned as she is in all her plastic glory, she would have half a liver and be forced to walk on all fours, unable to lift her head. Some shepherdess.
For the first time, last semester I caught onto the hype that surrounds the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show. I sat down to see what all the fuss was about and left after two minutes. I could hear like-minded women everywhere take a huge, collective sigh upon seeing what looked like an army of lean and leggy goddesses make us feel even less perfect. The most depressing part is that half of these women in the audience, in that moment, will have resolved to a I’m-never-eating-solid-food-again diet.
Women come in so many beautiful shapes and sizes, yet the $10 million show, in a position of supreme power and media exposure, consistently choses to showcase a horde of women who all have the same body shape.
Following the 2013 show, Victoria’s Secret Angel Adriana Lima released a frank and detailed account of her pre-catwalk preparation. Lima worked out every day for three months, and in the last three weeks before the show, she hit the gym twice a day and drank a gallon of water.
Nine days before the show, solid foods go out the window. Finally, 12 hours before she embraces the limelight, Lima doesn’t eat or drink anything. Normal women and girls need to understand that achieving “Angel” status is a full-time job.
It’s about time that representations of women started getting real. Assaults against Photoshop and honest confessions like Lima’s are a glimmer of hope upon an otherwise dreary road to airbrushed perfection. Boggie’s music video is a refreshing use of media exposure, intended to send a message that reaches out to ordinary women.
Instead of raising the bar, Boggie chose to take it down, break it up and give us all an inspiring piece.