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Demi Moore in W: The PhotoShop Heard ‘Round the World
Many of you may have already seen W magazine’s horrifying cover featuring Demi Moore, which is being roundly decried as “the worst PhotoShop ever.” The flesh missing from her retouched hip likely means someone’s head will roll at Condé Nast.
The airbrushing of her hip is so bad, it deflects attention from the fact that her waist, arms, and face have likely undergone a digital transformation as well, if recent candid photos are any indication. But what makes it even crazier is that it’s completely unnecessary. Ms. Moore recently turned 47 and looks almost unbelievably flawless — not just for her age, either.
Between W magazine’s gaffe and Ralph Lauren’s blunder, public trust in the reality of published photos has been completely eroded; they might as well be paintings at this point. E.S. readers, does this latest chop job bother you? Or are we desensitized to this kind of distorted body image by now?
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Admittedly I’m not your target audience (found this article through a Tweet); however, I’m more shocked by the gaffe/blunder than by the intention (the intention of modifying her physique and appearance).
It’s been at least several years that we’ve all come to see magazine cover art as being as you say “paintings” rather than photographs. There’s not one cover by ANY publisher that I look at that I imagine is the result of skilled photography plus traditional processing.
So, to me, it’s not desensitizing to the distorted body image, it’s desensitization to photo manipulation. Few people care because we all believe that every cover is doctored. We only care because a bad job was done and we can laugh.
Comment by Greg — November 19, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
Demi has tweeted:
“Here is the original image people my hips were not touched don’t let these people bullshit you!” http://twitpic.com/q4v70
Appears she has the original unretouched and indeed it looks like it’s an angle issue and that’s all.
Comment by Natalie — November 19, 2009 @ 4:20 pm
Interesting, Natalie. Though I’m not sure I believe that’s the original image. Other than lightening her skintone, nothing has been changed at all — not the folds on the dress, not a single strand of hair, not even the fringe on the epaulets. That’s highly unusual.
Comment by M.J. Prest — November 19, 2009 @ 5:33 pm
They’re trying to tell us this hasn’t been re-touched – what a load of bullshit! It’s so paintfully obvious that some alteration has happened. The lines of Demi’s hips to her thighs are totally out of proportion.
If you can’t see that, I suggest you make an appointment with an optometrist and get your eyes checked.
Comment by Ruth — November 20, 2009 @ 7:08 pm
Never fails, a powerful woman gets noticed for her true beauty and the green eyed monsters come rushing in to tear her down.
Comment by Hazel8500 — March 31, 2010 @ 5:02 pm