The Diet Joke

Being a woman isn’t always a barrel of monkeys. Sure, it’s fun to get flowers and eat petit fours, but none of that comes without a lot of pressure to look good.

Even beautiful, model-thin models don’t make the grade. That’s why, I guess, Ann Taylor feels the need to do a little retouching.

Well, not exactly a little…

This explains why when you try something on, it looks nothing like it did on the model.

Here’s the story from The Huffington Post who got the story from Jezebel.  (The Diet Joke may not be at the top of the breaking-news chain, but at least it’s in the chain.) Not that the story of retouching images of women is breaking news. Jezebel was in a huff back in 2007 over an equally dramatic retouching of Faith Hill on the cover of Redbook. And again in 2009 over Ralph Lauren ads.

If you want to see some photoshopping in action, watch this short 1-minute film from Dove called Evolution. But even as Dove called for involvement in its Campaign For Real Beauty, questions arose on whether Dove was utilizing the virtual knife on some of its “real women.” Dove denied the charges, but fashion retoucher Pascal Dangin said he did the work himself in this story from the New Yorker.

Want something even more dramatic? Here’s a  3-minute video from Supadump. Warning to kids, BOOTY WATCH!

For it’s worth, it’s not just images of women that are enhanced, edited, styled, etc., for the purpose of selling us something. It’s lots of things: vacation spots, hotel rooms, even food. Take for example this familiar item:

Buyer beware, my friends, buyer beware.