I really want to be excited about this Britney Spears/Candies/”Look Ma, no retouching!” business.
I mean, I really, really do. This blogger is psyched. Female Impersonator is pretty happy. And I get that it is super important to educate everyone (especially the young girls who make up the bulk of Britney’s fan base — wait, she still has a fan base, right?) on how photo retouching works so that we can stop assuming that the poreless perfection we see in magazines and on television bears any resemblance to reality.
But maybe it’s because Jessica Simpson just hopped on the cover of Marie Claire without any retouching or even makeup to promote her Vh1 show (and y’all know how I felt about that waste of time) — and was then promptly accused of actually wearing makeup because she looked so damn good. Maybe it’s because Kim Kardashian leaked unretouched photos of her bikini-clad self, like, months ago.
The whole thing is starting to feel like the new sex tape or baby bump rumor — the latest way waning starlets can exploit their own bodies for just a little more media attention, please. And hey, those are their bodies. They can point out their flaws (while claiming to have nothing left to prove) all they want. But let’s not pretend this is major progress. “Glad people are getting paid thousands of dollars to remove 2 millimeters from celebrity calves,” notes Nadine Jolie as she compares Brit’s before and after pics, above.
Right.
Because what all these “love me, love my (ever so tiny) muffin top” photos are actually saying is: “F*** retouching, I totally am this gorgeous.” Without getting into whatever innumerable beauty routines and insane diets they use to get that way. Without paying anything more than lip service to the idea that maybe women need not all conform to this one particular beauty myth.
I think I liked it better when the photos were fake and we all just had to keep reminding ourselves of that fact. Now the photos are real. But I’m not sure that means you can believe what you see.
What’s your take — are we in brave new world territory here? Or is Britney just psyched to be getting attention for something other than being totally insane?
Going back a generation – Jamie Lee Curtis did the same thing, but with more success. She stood in her underwear looking just like a real, 40-whatever year old woman: bulgy belly, jiggly thighs. At least that’s how I see it in my memory.
What still is lost is that women don’t look that way without a HUGE amount of work. And it’s fine; it’s their job. They make an obscene amount of money by looking great, so of course it’s in their interest to spend hours a day with a personal trainer and nutritionist. A lot of us would look pretty good if we did that, too. And they would probably look a lot more schlumpy if they were running around after kids, grocery shopping, working, & maybe trying to squeeze in 20min. at the gym – all by themselves.
I see your point, but I think we have to pick our battles. We can’t be mad at magazines for air brushing their models to death and then criticize the stars who decide to flaunt their un-air-brushed selves to the masses. Frankly, I think it’s great that Britney looks.. kind of normal in the first photo. I’m not sure I can point out what seems normal without also buying into what we find beautiful, but her skin isn’t actually flawless, and her legs aren’t perfectly smooth, and her actual butt looks like, well, a normal butt. Or at the very least, the normal butt of someone with a personal trainer and a chef. But still, more normal than Exhibit B. I support this trend. Because the more we embrace the way these women actually look, the more (I hope) our ideas about what is achievable and beautiful might adapt. Maybe?