A while back, Ms. Magazine did a big article about women’s magazines being shaped by their advertisements, and why Ms. refused to do it that way. Flip through any other women’s mag, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Editors are pressured by advertisers to create articles on makeup, in order to get that month’s ads. A makeup article will be placed right next to ads for the products pushed in the howto. When you look with clear eyes, you see that most women’s mags are little more than catalogs for makeup, clothes, and hair products.
Our ideas about what beauty looks like are shaped by the folks who sell you stuff. The hot look this spring is what they’re selling you this spring. Many women believe they are not beautiful because they are not six feet tall, they are not junkie-thin, and they are not vampire-pale.
When you figure out how deeply you have been conned, I hope you’ll be angry. Maybe you will be angry enough to reject the stereotype of beauty.
By the way, it’s not just women’s mags. Muscle mags, motorhead mags, GQ, and Rolling Stone are the same way.
You said “So many women we consider to be beautiful are only beautiful because of makeup and wardrobe.”
Then you link to a picture of Cameron Diaz with a bunch of pimples (you never get pimples?) and a picture of Eva Longoria doing I don’t know what.
How does that show they’re only beautiful because of the makeup? If I were so inclined I could probably turn around and find candid shots of both of them looking pretty good.
It’s funny; when I think of “women’s magazines”, I picture something with articles about cleaning tips and inspirational female charity organizers, and with a picture of a chocolate cake on the cover (recipe inside).
As to the pictures in the OP, those ladies are still wearing custom designed and tailored clothes, and photographed by skilled professional artists in just the right conditions of lighting, camera angle, and pose. They may be less artificial than the airbrushed paintings and Photoshops you often see, but they’re still far from “natural”.
Not to mention said photogs are using very expensive professional-grade gear. It’s amazing how much difference a good lens makes when you’re trying to take a flattering photo.
And let’s not fool ourselves… the pictures have still been Photoshopped to some degree, though perhaps not as much as they would have been for a “regular” cover shot. There isn’t a professional photographer in this world that doesn’t do a little post work to adjust various things like contrast, brightness and colour balance. Even those little tweaks can go a long way in taking away some of those imperfections.
That said, they’re still incredible photos in that they highlight just how unrealistic fashion and beauty magazines have become in the images they portray - people just can’t look like that in real life. Seeing a real woman on the cover, crow’s feet and all, is a pretty jarring contrast, even if she’s still stunningly beautiful.
Er, I think I’d be a little more charitable to the millions of women who buy these magazines than to say that they’re sheep being led to whatever kind of makeup CoverGirl wants to sell this season.
I think people generally realize that they’re being sold a look. That doesn’t mean that this doesn’t have negative consequences sometimes, but it also doesn’t mean that women are all just being tricked into thinking they want to be thin.
To me, the makeup thing is no big deal. I wear minimal makeup everyday I leave the house, and more if I’m getting prettied up to go out somewhere. At home, makeup is completely optional.
What’s more important to me is that there is no airbrushing or photoshopping done of the pics. That is where the real deception is - you can’t look like them, because *they *don’t look like them. I was very surprised when I came across a bunch of photoshopped celebrity pics, with the before and after. I have a 13 year old daughter, and when I explain that the bodies and faces she compares herself to are fictional, she doesn’t really believe me.
We’re in the middle of a recession. Let’s be wary of any trend that might weaken yet another industry. For Og’s sake, won’t somebody think of the Avon Ladies?!
All the women in those shots are naturally freekin’ flawless. If I looked that good without makeup, I’d go without too! I don’t look that good without makeup. Not even close.
I have no problem with women going natural, flaws or not, but I also have no problem with people who wear it because they feel and look their personal best. I would be extremely uncomfortable with no makeup and I don’t feel I’m doing the sisterhood a disservice by continuing to wear it. It’s cultural and technically unnecessary, but it’s part of my routine and I feel much better with it than without it.
I’m with you on the pantyhose. I rarely wear skirts, but I do so even more rarely since realizing that it’s considered dowdy or something to wear hose.
First, I personally just don’t like sticking my bare feet into shoes. Second, looking professional while having bare legs involves a much more diligent regimen of leg hair removal than I care to bother with…and it seems you’re expected to be tanned as well. Third, I think the no hose look came in due to the increased popularity of open-toed shoes, and wearing those seems to mean you’re also expected to have a pedicure. Forget that. It’s not that I love pantyhose, but putting up with them for a few hours every once in a while seems a lot less trouble in the long run.
Oh, I hate hose, but then I’m super diligent about hair removal. (Every three weeks, it gets ripped out by the roots, whether I like it or not.) Also wearing knee high boots often gets rid of that problem if I am hairy.
So Cameron is having a bad skin week. She still has great features. Eva looks beautiful in that photo. She has great bone structure, eyes, hair, skin and teeth.
I’m reminded of a favorite bit in the film Notting Hill (yeah, I’m a straight guy who loves “chick flicks”. Sue me.) Julia Roberts’ character Anna Scott:
Anna Scott: I’ve been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I’ve been hungry for a decade. I’ve had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it’s entertainment. And it’s taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this. Honey: Really? Anna Scott: Really. And, one day not long from now, my looks will go, they will discover I can’t act and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.
Y’know, the smile in her before picture there is enough to make up for all of the makeovering in the after picture. Pouty facial expressions are something that can’t go out of style fast enough, for my tastes.
