You, too, can get Couric'd

Want to look skinny in pictures? Forget pounding down the doors of the CBS public relations department. Broadsheet (registration required): An HP digital camera "offers a special 'artistic effect' called 'slimming,' which basically takes a digital image and sort of smushes it, creating a narrowing effect. That's right. Now body dysmorphia isn't just in your head!" More:

Two models are shown. Unsurprisingly, both are beautiful and utterly healthy looking. But not beautiful enough. Nosirree. They need to be slimmed! And so the ad quickly sucks off a few extra pounds, leaving the women looking only infinitessimally changed. But those teensy differences make a big difference. Perfection -- as evidenced by outward indication of food deprivation and steely self-discipline -- is a must when it comes to female body image. Thank God there's now a camera that allows us to punish ourselves, correct our "faults" -- especially those hard-to-fix imaginary ones! -- and alter embarrassingly lifelike images of ourselves so that no one can see what we actually look like.

That's the sickest, most frustrating thing. Without HP pointing out their "flaws," any sane person looking at the pictures of the two women in the ad would find nothing wrong with them. Women of all shapes, sizes and ages -- perfectly fine, perfectly healthy shapes, sizes and ages -- already have to filter through the false images prevalent in the mega-Photoshopped, cellulite- and wrinkle-free world of print media and advertising. Now HP is suggesting that we absorb the distortion even further into our lives by plugging it into our gadgets and pushing the buttons ourselves, like good little masochists. That's enough for me to never, ever want to buy an HP product again. Oh, wait -- I never have anyway. Cool.

Comments

[allyn york]

that's all kinds of sick and wrong. blech.