I chose this picture of Oprah Winfrey’s head photo-shopped onto the body of Ann-Margret, which was originally found on the cover of TV Guide in August 1989, because it addresses some of the same issues that are associated with a couple of the other pictures on this web-site, such as the those of Katie Couric and Martha Stewart. In all of these photos, a woman’s body has been manipulated in order to make her appear more attractive. In this particular picture, Oprah is associated with great wealth. This goes back to the idea that the “rich and famous” all have perfect bodies although with vast sums of money. This photo was obviously manipulated in order to portray Oprah as “having it all together.” I believe that this type of manipulation is extremely harmful. It is not only harmful to the people whose photos are being altered but also to our in entire society. In this particular case, neither Oprah Winfrey nor Ann-Margret was aware of the manipulation. Also, this proves destructive to our society. Young children, teens, and adults are constantly swarmed by media. Whenever they observe magazines, TV programs, etc. they believe that you must be thin and have a perfect body in order to be considered successful or socially accepted. As we all know, this is not true. No one is perfect, and computer technology should definitely not be used in order to portray people in a way causes us to believe any differently.
Anne, this is an excellent post - you made some very good points about the harmful effects of a seemingly harmless manipulation.
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I like your interpretation of "having it all together." I think we see that in the media even though it's not always possible.
ReplyDeleteI too think that pictures like this are harmful. Normal people have unrealistic expectations for themselves because of images like this one.
ReplyDeleteWe are corrupting our perception about aesthetics...this is part of the preposterous power of the media.
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