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I came across this great spoof video today: Fotoshop by Adobé by Jesse Rosten.
I've never understood how it can be legal for a cosmetic company to digitally alter a photo in an advertisement to create the kind of result they claim their product is supposed to create (smooth skin, etc.). It seems to be a cut and dried case of false advertising to me, but apparently there's something else going on because it's been going on unabated for years. I'm so used to altering my own photographs (such as this one from yesterday) that I can see the digital manipulation in these kinds of advertisements a mile away, but from what I can tell, most people don't realize just how unrealistic these photos are.
Jesse's video should be required viewing, especially for young girls, to give them a realistic mindset in preparation for the barrage of unrealistic, unattainable “beauty” fakeness that society will envelop them in and pressure them with.
It was amusing, especially the pronunciation Uhdough- BAY
Reminds me a bit of the Dove “Evolution of Beauty” video; that really let the genie out of the bottle by revealing how Photoshop made it so easy to turn reality into fantasy. My daughter’s a few weeks away from becoming a teenager, and I’ll be showing her both videos for sure.
I liked the last line of voiceover – “Maybe she’s born with it – nah, I’m pretty sure it’s Fotoshop”
I actually thought of you immediately when I saw this. Agreed that it is very damaging to perpetuate this unattainable image of beauty, and even worse that it is so rare to see signs of natural aging on models and celebrities, because our society doesn’t value women once they start growing old. Perhaps the Fotoshop people are in cahoots with the plastic surgery industry?
I don’t think the case of false advertising is so clear: Ad’s have been showing a bent version of reality from the very beginning. Photoshop is just continuation with new methods. They still plaster the women with makeup and tape the clothing to make them ‘fit’. In the video they even showed that they applied makeup to cover a tattoo.
I think the main point about false advertising is not that reality is changed (because as you point out, much of advertising is a bent reality), but that the specific reality that the advertised product is intended for is manufactured in the ad without the product, yet presented with the explicit intention that “our product had done this (and so of course will do this for you)”.
It’s the same as if an ad for a television shows an image that is not (and can not) be actually displayed on the TV, but doesn’t include the “image is simulated” disclaimer.
An image of a woman with impossibly-smooth skin (to the point of looking like a mannequin) in an advertisement for, say, toilet paper, is an unfortunate, ill-conceived marketing choice, but the same image in an advertisement for anti-wrinkle cream is (or should be, I feel) an infraction of the law. —Jeffrey