I have very conflicting feelings about this…
I think this is an experiment with good intentions, but I think that the perspective of its originator is highly evident given the way it was undertaken. They took a photo of a woman, this woman:
And gave it to photoshop experts around the world to make her into the ideal woman in their country… The first question I have is “Why do we need to work with a specific template?” Where I am pleased that she is on the “larger” side (I guess they had to have something to take away…) why are we using the image of one white woman in a multi-cultured experiment?
Why not just ask the photoshoppers to use a picture of a woman FROM their country and then doctor that? This way Egypt would not have to darken her skin, and China would not have to blacken the hair and change the eyes, and we could get a real sense of what their ideal is. The act of photoshopping already creates an uncomfortable distortion, and the changes to make this image somewhat culturally represent their nation makes the images even creepier…
The other thing that irked me is the once again there are no BLACK – or Brown nations represented yes there is South Africa but they went with the “White” South African aesthetic….Surprise Surprise. Where is Kenya, Nigeria, India, the West Indies? Once again the Black or African ideal of beauty is nowhere to be found, we don’t even rank…Wonder why I write a blog about body image? Anyway check this out:
Hosted by: HuffingtonPost.com
What does a “perfect body” look like? It depends who you ask — and where they are.
UK online pharmacy Superdrug Online Doctors recently created a project called “Perceptions Of Perfection” that features 18 photoshopped images of the same woman. The company hired designers from countries around the world to photoshop a stock image via Shutterstock to reflect the beauty standards of their specific countries.
“Widely held perceptions of beauty and perfection can have a deep and lasting cultural impact on both women and men,” a Superdrug press release reads. “The goal of this project is to better understand potentially unrealistic standards of beauty and to see how such pressures vary around the world.”
The company asked 18 designers from 18 countries spanning five continents to photoshop an image of a woman to fit their perception of the culture’s beauty standards. Below is the original image before the designers photoshopped it:
Click to see the rest :