The Great Photoshop Crusade
National Journal, July 11, 2014
Byline: Marin Cogan
If I find a horse's head in my bed, I'll know who put it there," Seth Matlins is saying. We are sitting in a secluded booth at Decanter--the gilded, Mediterranean-themed restaurant of the St. Regis Hotel in Washington--and the advertising executive-turned-citizen activist is telling me about his recent sparring with representatives of the industry he used to work for.
Matlins is on a crusade to get the government to take on what he sees as one of the great social ills of our time: Photoshop. More specifically, the unrealistic breast-enhancing, stomach-slimming, cheekbone-defining, under-eye-circle-erasing that pervades so much advertising and (countless studies show) can contribute to lower self-esteem and decreased happiness for women, children, and men. "In my estimation, it's as big a public health crisis as anything we have faced as a country," he says. "And there are people who think I'm being hyperbolic, but I think the data makes it absolutely clear. ... This is an issue that has affected, and I'd argue, infected, generations of Americans--and promises to continue to affect generations more unless we do something."
Artist Nicolay Lamm's "normal Barbie" project: another attempt to point out commercial distortions of the average woman's body. (NickolayLamm/Splash)But first, let him make something very apparent: "We are not trying to ban Photoshop," he says. Rather, the scope of the bill he and his allies are lobbying for is much narrower. They want the Federal Trade Commission--the regulatory agency that protects consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices--to submit a report to Congress outlining a strategy for reducing the use of "images that have been altered to materially change the physical characteristics" of people in advertisements.
Matlins--who still looks the part of a Los Angeles ad man: crosshatched navy blazer, perfectly dimpled tie, horn-rimmed glasses with blond stems--started his career selling Evian, or, as he puts it, "pictures of cut bodies." He moved to L.A. 16 years ago; there, he ran Rock the Vote, then helped start the marketing division at Creative Artists Agency.
But after having two children--he and his wife, Eva, adopted Ella Rose, now 8, and Otis, 7--Matlins became "such a daddy cliche." He started looking at the world through the eyes of his daughter. One year, the nanny gave her a Barbie doll for Christmas. In his head, he was having a mini-meltdown, thinking, "You just gave our child a loaded weapon--are you kidding me?!" Barbie had been one of his marketing projects. "That's when I realized I needed to help make the world a better place."
"When at least 30 million Americans are suffering from eating disorders, we can't simply ignore the problem and hope it goes away."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
So, in 2010, Matlins left corporate life and with Eva started a website, Feel More Better, that was meant to be "60 percent Oprah, 40 percent Sarah Silverman." The idea was to create a more uplifting space for young women than the fashion magazines they were regularly exposed to. In August 2011, after seeing a story about a British MP who successfully took down L'Oreal ads in England, he wrote an op-ed in The Huffington Post floating the idea that we should regulate beauty advertising in the U.S. After he wrote the article, "I started cold-calling members of the women's congressional caucus," he recalls. Matlins had no idea what he was doing; but, he says, "I knew I had to do something."
In late 2013, building on decades of work by feminist activists and writers on the issue, Matlins decided to turn his full focus to advocating for a bill in Congress. He teamed up with a number of groups, including the Eating Disorders Coalition, to get a bill introduced by Democratic Rep. Lois Capps of California and Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, and he has been commuting between L.A. and D.C. to build support for it. In April, Matlins and others went to Capitol Hill to hold a briefing on the bill, and in June they returned to present Capps and Ros-Lehtinen with a Change.org petition signed by 28,000 people backing the legislation. Since then, the petition has reached 35,000 signatures. The bill has also picked up Democrat Ted Deutch of Florida as a cosponsor.
Matlins says he became "such a daddy cliche." (Courtesy of Seth Matlins)The FTC rarely comments on pending legislation, but spokeswoman Betsy Lordan notes that the agency already "has the authority to take action against any ad whose net impression is considered deceptive under the Federal Trade Commission Act." The activists and sponsors of the bill, however, want the FTC to come up with a systemic approach--not a one-off investigation into an individual ad.
"These fake, impossible, and digitally altered bodies have been contributing to serious, deadly health issues like eating disorders for too long," Ros-Lehtinen tells me. "When at least 30 million Americans are suffering from eating disorders, we can't simply ignore the problem and hope it goes away. The advertising industry has not and will not self-regulate without pressure from the public." For her part, Capps notes that she was motivated to sponsor the bill by her experience as a school nurse. "I'm a little surprised to see the reaction be so strong and so supportive," she says.
Capps, Matlins, and other backers take pains to point out this is not an effort to curtail First Amendment rights: Commercial speech doesn't necessarily have the same protections as individual speech, especially if it's false or deceiving. Still, conservatives other than Ros-Lehtinen haven't rushed to the cause.
"We're under no illusions that this is not a process, and it's going to take time," Matlins tells me. "The truth is on our side, but the odds are still--they're long." He scribbles a graph on an x-y axis. "By 13, 53 percent of girls are unhappy with themselves," he says, repeating one commonly cited data point on the topic. "At 17, it's 78 percent."
As he speaks, Kathleen MacDonald, a policy staffer from the Eating Disorders Coalition--his partner in petitioning the government--turns up with a bubble-wrapped binder he sent her. It is filled with examples of waists narrowed to biological impossibility and comments from signers of the Change.org petition. "Some of them are just devastating," he says. "They're so poignant and so human and smart." He plans to take this to the FTC and congressional officials he's about to go meet with. "The average woman has 13 thoughts of self-hate every day," he says. "When I think about my babies--boy and girl--having thoughts of self-hate because of an ad that's trying to deceive them to sell a widget? That's not cool. Not cool with me." Then he's off to see the regulators.
Source Citation
Cogan, Marin. "The Great Photoshop Crusade." National Journal 11 July 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Internal Citation
(Cogan)
Fashion's Full-Figured Failure
Newsweek, October 22, 2012
Byline: Robin Givhan
Don't like your body? Don't blame the models.
The spring 2013 runway shows, which finished in Paris this month, were filled with impossibly skinny, extremely young gazelles. So were the fall glossies. Fashion as usual, perhaps--yet this was supposed to have changed.
In the midst of the ongoing battle between an industry intent on creating idealized images of women, and critics who believe those images do grievous harm, the 19 editors-in-chief of the Vogue brand banded together last May to announce a detente. They promised not to "knowingly" use mannequins under the age of 16 or those who appeared to have an eating disorder, and pledged to be "ambassadors for the message of healthy body image." To demonstrate their seriousness, they dedicated issues to the cause. American Vogue mounted a splashy cover story on Olympic athletes, while Gisele Bundchen's perfectly round derriere took center stage at French Vogue.
But the lure of teenage models proved irresistible. By fall, Vogue China had broken the pledge and featured 15-year-old model Ondria Hardin; its counterpart in Japan suffered a similar lapse.
This was only the latest industry failure. In 2007, the Council of Fashion Designers of America created a similar pledge, which has since been broken--most notably, by designer Marc Jacobs, who unapologetically included a 14-year-old Hardin in his fall 2012 show, her baby face barely visible under a giant, fur hat.
The fashion industry simply loves a skinny young girl. And for the average woman, fashion continues to deliver a brutal, frustrating fantasy. But are the models to blame for women's psychic battering?
To most critics, skinny models seem to exacerbate the occurrence of eating disorders. But over time, it hasn't mattered if the models-of-the-day were waifs or Amazons. Experts say there's no evidence that the rate of eating disorders has spiked or plummeted accordingly.
So apparently size doesn't matter. Rather, fashion's sin is that it peddles dissatisfaction. What one has is never quite pretty enough, luxurious enough, glamorous enough--and, with obesity on the rise and baby boomers settling into retirement--thin, toned, and tight enough.
Activists say fashion could give women a break by showing a diversity of body sizes and designing for all of them. But democracy in fashion has only added to the stress. Mass marketers make it relatively inexpensive to be fashionable--if a woman makes an effort. Beauty is a big-tent conceit and no one is exempt, even if they'd like to be.
Why can't we make peace with fashion? Perhaps because we can't decide if it is a commodity industry that should respond to a marketplace filled with size 14 women, or if it is an art form that should be free to weave elusive fantasies.
During Vogue's golden years, the magazine was filled with black-and-white images of models posed to exaggerate lithe physiques. It also featured illustrations that reduced the body to simple geometry--circles, triangles, legs elongated to lines. We savor those images because we see them as art. "No one is going to protest a Giacometti, but they will protest a photo in Seventeen," says Susan Scafidi, academic director of Fordham's Fashion Law Institute.
Contemporary fashion tries to be both rarefied and accessible. Economically, it only makes sense. But while everyone should be concerned about the well-being of models, it is helpful to remember that while they are flesh and blood, fashion itself is mostly smoke and mirrors.
Source Citation
Givhan, Robin. "Fashion's Full-Figured Failure." Newsweek 22 Oct. 2012: 7. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Internal Citation
(Givhan)
As G.I. Joe Bulks Up, Concern For the 98-Pound Weakling
The New York Times, May 30, 1999
Just as Barbie dolls have taunted little girls with an impossible ideal of the female body, G.I. Joes have morphed over the last three decades into musclebound hunks that can harm the self esteem of boys, according to a new study.
Dr. Harrison Pope, a Harvard psychiatrist, studied the evolution of American action figures over the last 30 years to learn whether there was a connection between the toys and an increase in body-image disturbances among men. Dr. Pope and his researchers purchased G.I. Joes and other action figures manufactured since the 1960's, and measured their waists, chests and biceps. The results were stark.
''Many modern figures display the physiques of advanced bodybuilders and some display levels of muscularity far exceeding the outer limits of actual human attainment,'' according to the study, published this month in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
More research is needed to determine the effect on boys and, ultimately, adult men, the study warned, but added, ''the impact of toys should not be underestimated.'' Male action toys accounted for $949 million in manufacturer's shipments in 1994, and action figures were $687 million of the total, the study said.
The study noted one exception to the bulking-up trend: Barbie's longtime boyfriend, Ken.
CAPTION(S):
Photos: 1964 -- The original G.I. Joe had relatively normal proportions. 1974 -- A decade later, Joe was bulked up and given a ''kung-fu grip.'' 1994 -- Gung-Ho, the ultimate marine, had a Marine Corps tattoo. MARK McGWIRE -- Even at 6'5'', Mark McGwire, the homerun king, is no match for the latest incarnation of Joe. 1998 -- The latest incarnation is the aptly named G.I. Joe Extreme. (Sources: ''The G.I. Joe Encyclopedia,'' by Vincent Santelmo; Photographs by Vincent Santelmo and Associated Press)
Source Citation
"As G.I. Joe Bulks Up, Concern For the 98-Pound Weakling." New York Times 30 May 1999. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 20 Dec. 2015.
Internal Citation
(“As G.I. Joe”)
The tyranny of action man
The Sun-Herald (Sydney, Australia), November 7, 1999
Byline: JANE SOUTHWARD
There's enormous pressure on girls to comply with an idealised body image. It can be as great for boys - but more dangerous because it is less well recognised. JANE SOUTHWARD reports.
Matthew grimaced as he lifted each 40kg dumbbell up and down . . . left, right, left, right. He's 16 and was lifting weights many adults would struggle to move, let alone work with such a punishing rhythm. Matthew had been at the gym for an hour, having ridden 15km on the exercise bike and then watched himself in the mirror for 10 minutes as he sweated and grunted through a stretching routine elite footballers would envy.
It was the early evening scene at Healthlands, Bondi Junction, but the same thing happens at most gyms in most suburbs every day. In the words of John Novak, who has worked in Sydney gyms for 20 years and introduced Original Kick Fit at Healthlands five years ago: "Kids who used to go to the gym for a sport are now doing it for looks and many are obsessed with it."
Teenage boys are pushing their bodies more than ever, trying to attain the muscles and cut (definition) of their role models. They want the biceps of South American singer Ricky Martin and the cut of elite footballers, triathletes and boxers such as Sydney City's Luke Ricketson, triathlete Brad Beven and boxer KostyaTszyu. Paradoxically, these boys who spend hours each week thinking of nothing but themselves don't like talking about themselves. Sure they enjoy the bravado of the gym culture, but not one would give his surname or be photographed for this story.
"I'm not totally happy with myself at the moment," explained Matthew, working his over-developed tricep.
This discontentment with their bodies is a symptom of a new health concern called reverse anorexia nervosa. It mainly affects young men who become obsessed with their body size and who, unlike their anorexic sisters, simply cannot get big enough.
"Boys are now facing the same pressures to look like a particular image that girls have been facing for the past two decades," Mr Novak said. "The look for boys is leaner and more muscularly defined than ever."
Sydney exercise physiologist Tamara Hunter, who studied the disorder in research for her honours thesis at the University of NSW, warned that pressure for men to look a certain way was increasing as advertisers used lean, "cut" men to sell their products. As Victorian health promotion expert Louise Wigg put it: "It's almost as though advertisers are saying, 'We've milked all we can out of women feeling bad about their bodies, now it's time for men'. "The problem is that what's left are young men who are disillusioned about themselves."
The pressure to look a certain way begins soon after birth, according to an unusual US study of action figure dolls. Harvard University psychiatrist Harrison Pope measured the dimensions of new and 1964 action figures such as GI Joe, Batman and Superman and projected them on to a 170cm male. What he found was that the chest of the action figures had increased from 111.76cm to 144.78cm inches while the waist had decreased by 5.08cm (to 76.2cm) and the biceps had more than doubled from 30.48cm to 68.58cm.
Ms Hunter and other health experts say this unreal representation of the male physique does not help when boys reach puberty and begin to struggle with who they are and what they look like. Add in scores of images of muscular men in football calendars, men's magazines such as Men's Health and in TV commercials advertising anything from bed sheets to beer, and it is clear the pressure is on. In her ground-breaking Australian research, Ms Hunter considered the physical and mental health of 42 body builders, half of whom used steroids. Alarmingly, she found that the longer the body builders were involved in the gym culture the more dissatisfied they became with their bodies and the more likely they were to have a distorted view of what was a normal physique. "These massive body builders just couldn't get big enough," Ms Hunter said. She measured their dimensions and, using a computer-based image, asked them to choose the images they thought most represented them, their ideal and what they thought was normal. "What I found was in most cases they chose an image representing themselves that was smaller than their ideal and smaller than their reality," Ms Hunter said. "This suggested that not only was there a dissatisfaction with their bodies but there was a distortion because they actually saw themselves as smaller than they were."