Jo Swinton, the LibDem MP has brought airbrushing back into the public domain. Her main complaint is that children's advertisements should state any enhanced photograph should be marked as such.
I'm all for this and not only for children's advertisements. Nowadays the media airbrush to such an extent that they can reduce the shape of a 'normal' person into a shape that not even the subject of the photograph can recognise.
Jo Swinton isn't asking for airbrushed photographs to be banned but for them to be marked so as any viewer then knows the photograph is not completely genuine and in particular advertisements aimed at children.
We have a problem in this country with young people and adults being obsessed with the shape of their bodies and the obsession can lead to lifelong medical problems. It is not completely confined to females, males are known to have body imagine problems too.
This isn't the first time an MP has spoken out about this problem but I think Jo Swinton's solution is an excellent compromise. She doesn't wish to ban airbrushed photography, she wishes to make the publishers take responsibility for altering images. 'The camera never lies' will always be the truth, unless of course computer software is involved and I see no reason why a declaration should not be attached to a photograph in these cases.
If anyone watched Channel 4 news earlier this evening they would have seen an interview with Jo Swinton and the editor of a teenage magazine called Sugar. Ms Swinton put forward a good, clear argument, the magazine editor's comments were, to say the least, pathetic.
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I have a lot of time for Jo Swinton. She isn't a slave to PC - just common sense.
I would agree Fausty. He tends to be overshadowed by the 'boys' though and they do little to bring her into the Libdem boys club. All rather a shame really as she would bring more substance to them.
Vince Cable was on Channel 4 again about finance. Argh!!! Surely the public don't still believe every word he says?
Ooops that should read 'she tends to be overshadowed' not he.
Apologies.
Swinson does appear to be more of a class act than most, I'd agree there.
On the airbrushing thing...and I don't want to sound like some unrealistic idealist, but we need to fix the 'it's all about looks' culture with kids these days. Yes, tackling the airbrushing thing would make a dent as this is a big part of the problem. Airbrushing or not, they will always be using top models for the shoots and more work will be done on the make up side.
This is the problem at the heart of the issue, to me anyway.
Reposting my comment from LibDemVoice because this blog is better :-)
How very illiberal, ban airbrushing or label it. For goodness sake just tell the kids how ads work, issue over. Nothing new in this, airbrushing has gone on since the portrait painters left off the mole or wart on the noblewoman’s portrait.
See Warning! This image has been airbrushed.
Of course much more needs to be done PD, but I do know just how influential pictures in a magazine can be. Young women and girls buy these magazines and combined with peer pressure, the aim that somehow 'perfection' can be reached by using products of some kind becomes a reality at times.
Makeup use is fine with me, the application of it is a skill many women never fully acquire but airbrushing is the alteration of the photograph.
Ollie, you'll never be able to tell kids how ads work until they're old enough to realise they've spent thousands of pounds on rubbish.
No Ollie, that's not airbrushing, that's what is referred to as 'artistic licence'. Now tell me the difference. :)
Ollie, I wouldn't mind a declaration on a photograph of me, as long as the airbrushers made me look half as good as Ms Swinton.
I assumed the illustration to the article was of you Subrosa.
Misleading or what.
Oh how I wish Hamish :)
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