Two Worlds Collide

This week's topic was really fun to explore. I really enjoyed reading the lecture and visiting all of the links that were incorporated within. It was a good way to break up the reading with fun, interesting websites and videos. My favorites had to have been the Dove Evolution video and the other videos that I took the liberty of watching on that website. It was funny to see the lengthy processes that are involved in a complete "make over" or transformation from a pretty, but fairly average looking person into a "perfect" model. If you watch the other videos you can see the torture that they put people through to get a certain Hollywood look. This torture can range from more conservative changes like hair, nails, and make-up to the more extreme like plastic surgery and botox. It is ridiculous, in my opinion.

Has anybody seen America's Next Top Model? The majority of the girls on that show wouldn't even catch your eye if you saw them walking down the street and then they take them and completely transform them to the point where they are hardly recognizable. They then take those images and "touch them up" even further. The final product looks nothing like the original. I must admit, that show is actually kind of funny to watch. The shows that really make me want to throw up are those extreme make-over shows that do all of the plastic surgery. Gross!

I think it is really cool that videos and publications that are against this kind of thing have come out and are trying to inform the public about "the truth" behind Hollywood and media advertising. I wouldn't say that the manipulation of digital images has affected me as much as your average person because I probably watch a lot less television, read a lot less magazines, and listen to a lot less radio than most people, but I am definitely affected by it. I mean you can't turn on the television, go to the check out stand at the grocery store, turn on the TV or radio, or do any number of normal activities without being exposed to manipulated media and advertising gimmicks.


I think, in general, women are more affected by media and are more likely to have low self-esteem and a negative body image due to the direct influence of manipulated digital images and media in general. However, men are anything but exempt. We are influenced as well and we are given a certain expectation of women that is unrealistic and naturally unobtainable. I would say that probably 99% of images are altered or "improved" before they are printed. The people that we see as a final product look drastically different than the original photograph. They don't even look like the same person much of the time. These people we are seeing are NOT REAL. Not everybody has the perfect body. Not all girls look like Victoria Secret models and not all guys look like body builders or professional athletes. The bottom line is that this junk gives everybody false perceptions, outrageous physical expectations, and lower self esteem. However, that isn't what's important. What is really important is how much product you sell, how many viewers or subscribers you have, how many hits you get on your website, or ultimately, how much money you make, right?

I do want to comment a little bit about the Spirit Photographs because I found them amusing. I understand that when photography was still a new phenomena that it would have been really easy to buy into this belief of being able to capture an image of spirits in a photograph, but come on people still believe this nowadays? The website we looked at was just funny to me. I don't believe it for a second. I actually saw a snippet of something on the news the other day that is relevant to this topic of spirits. There was video captured from a camera at a gas station that showed a blue, hazy, spirit-looking thing flying around the cars and gas pumps and it was present for an hour or so. They interviewed people to get their opinions on what this thing could have been. Some people said it was a spirit or a ghost; some thought it was just a blur or a problem with the camera; some thought it was a blue bag that just kept blowing around. The owner of the gas station said he didn't know what it was, but he was glad it was gone because it was creeping him out. I just thought it was funny.

The artwork of Keith Cottingham and Aziz and Cucher from this week's lecture is very interesting and just further demonstrate how images can be manipulated to create something completely false. Keith Cottingham is able to essentially create the illusion of clones by taking several photographs of the same subject and manipulating them so that the final product looks as if they are identical triplets in three different poses. It is kind of neat and creepy at the same time. I just imagined that being me in the photo and got the heebie jeebies. Aziz and Cucher's "Dystopia Series" takes all of these normal portraits and manipulates them so that their eyes and mouth all appear as if they are completely sealed over with their skin. This looks like some freaky zombie horror movie in my opinion. i guess it is cool that they can do things like this, but I would be really creeped out if I was the security guard at the gallery and I had to walk by this wall at night with all of these huge, scary, portraits looking at me or "not looking at me." I would get the feeling they were watching me (even though they don't have eyes), and that they would like crawl out of their frame and eat me (even though they don't have mouths).

These works are just extreme artistic examples of what we are capable of when it comes to digitally manipulating photographs. You might or might not believe that these images were real, but I bet that "back in the day" they would have believed that the boy really was an identical triplet and that all of those Dystopia creeps were AAAAHHHHHH! REAL MONSTERS! These altered art works really aren't that extreme compared to what we are exposed to on a daily basis. We may not see many models or posters where people are duplicated or have their mouths and/or eyes sealed over, but they definitely trim waists, enhance busts, clear up skin, enlarge muscles, and remove this or add that. It is sad really, but this is the deceptive world that we live in. You definitely can't believe everything you see.