so bootyliscious…

Check this video, it’s somebody doing an extreme example of what photoshop and other programs are all about – image modification. This is real shit people, I should know – I use the same sort of techniques to pay the rent designing websites, except of course instead of modifying pictures of women – something I refuse to do on principle – I’m modifying houses, cars, trees, anything and everything else.

[youtube PduJAw5oxIg so bootyliscious]

Basically, in 2007 you can’t trust any photo on any website or in any newspaper or magazine unless you took it yourself or you were there when it was taken and can personally verify its contents. Scary shit, and not just because of the way the kind of thing illustrated in this video impacts women, but because it means the new Mandarins who control everything we see and hear in the mass media can make us see and hear anything they damn well please – regardless of reality. Think about that next time you’re watching the news.

Here’s another great example of this from the folks at Redbook. apparently even middle-aged pop-country singers are expected to look like 17 year old anorexics forever.

yuck.

And, of course there are repercussions for that – here’s part of a great speech on exactly from mediaed.org

[youtube _FpyGwP3yzE Killing us softly]

For the record, I’m very glad she mentions limiting conceptions of gender – both masculinity and femininity – as one of the repercussions. because while women’s bodies are far more exploited to sell things then mens, the roles and options available to people of both genders are severely restricted by the sexist programming of the mass media. Here’s another short video from Ariel Levy talking about how media-generated conceptions of sexuality designed to sell things is limiting and fucks up people’s sex lives.

[youtube i780bzPyD6U]

We all like sex, right? American’s might not stand up for our civil rights or for human rights or for the environment but you’d think we’d at least stand up for sex, wouldn’t you? but no… far from. instead we’ve allowed sex to become just another commodity to be appropriated by corporate america and then sold back to us. Instead of exploring our sexuality freely and openly we purchase it in little bits and pieces – prefabricated and prepackaged. In the process, image of womens’ bodies are grossly manipulated in search of some grotesque impossible ideal of ‘perfection’ and men’s capacity for empathy, love, and deep emotion is stripped away to be replaced by a Hulk-like figure that is all biceps and cool gadgets but no heart, no soul, no mind. The thinking man doesn’t get the girl after all, real women want strong silent types – tall dark and handsome and dumb as rocks. More reasons for men to support feminism – our liberation hangs in the balance here too guys. It’s time we stood up for ourselves and for our sisters and let corporate america know this shit isn’t cool. Beauty, sexuality, identity, life itself – none of these things are commodities, despite the capitalists best efforts to turn them into things that can be easily bought and sold.

Posted: July 12th, 2007 under gender & feminism, video.
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