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French cosmetics brand Make Up For Ever is running a new ad that claims to be the first ever unretouched make-up ad. In other words, the way you see her in the photo is how she looked when the shutter clicked. Of course, your first clue that something is up is held in her extended hand. Her camera isn’t on, which means the picture we are seeing didn’t come from that one, it came from another one. So we can’t say this is how the model looks in “real life,” wherever that is. All we can say is that when a shutter somewhere clicked on this particular image, that’s how she looked.
In fact, this is a shot of a professional model taken in a studio under controlled lighting conditions. The model was probably selected specifically for this “unretouchable” shoot, which meant they specifically selected a model whose skin is naturally smooth and unblemished. The model then had her hair and makeup prepared by professionals and touched up throughout the hours-long shoot. And we can assume that the lighting and the makeup selection were coordinated to achieve the optimum color balance and reflectivity. The photographer then likely shot hundreds of images (perhaps with multiple cameras from a number of angles), which they painstaking scrutinized in connection with the agency and possibly the client.
The result is that you think you are seeing a candid shot of a girl in a nightclub, whose image has not been enhanced, taking a photo of herself (why is she doing this?).
There has been a backlash against retouching and Photoshopping in makeup and fashion ads which started in feminist blogs but quickly spread to the mainstream. The general consensus is that Photoshopping has reached such an extreme level that it is used to create artificial female-lookalikes that resemble no human actually walking the earth. The ad is intended to play on that backlash to create a pro-feminist image for the brand. So the ad is saying something about how women view the cosmetics industry and is sending a message about how it wants women to view this particular company within that industry. It says to feminist critics “we hear you.” These are relatively new statements (but not entirely new) within the cosmetics industry.
But that isn’t all the ad is saying. The ad is saying that this make-up will give you a perfect Photoshop face. It’s called “High Definition”–a term coined in relation to television–not because the product allows you to see all the details, but instead because the product will hide your imperfections from high-definition scrutiny. The makeup might as well be called “Photoshop for Your Face”. But within this claim lies the underlying message of the ad.
The ad is saying something about how women should view beauty. Even as beautiful as this model probably is in real life, it still isn’t good enough. They needed professional lighting, hair, makeup, and photography to make her look better. So the real message is “Even in the absence of Photoshop, the standard of beauty is still a perfect face.”
Think carefully about why Photoshopping is bad. Is it bad because it alters the appearance of women in a way that is unreproducible in the physical world, creating images of women that don’t or even can’t actually exist? Why is that bad? Or is it because Photoshop removes imperfections and so allows advertisers to set perfection as the standard of beauty?
The truth is that Photoshopping was never the problem. The problem in those ‘shopped ads persists in this one. In practice, every single photograph you have ever seen in a magazine or advertisement for any product was enhanced. Makeup, cars, dog food, life insurance. Every single one. Cameras just don’t take bright, high contrast photos without retouching. Even Ansel Adams retouched. We know about Adams precisely because he perfected many darkroom retouching techniques. And anyway, nobody complains about Photoshopping in Iams pet food ads, even though no dog’s coat never looks as good as the dog’s coat in the ad. No, the problem was never Photoshop.
The problem lies in this: every single cosmetic and beauty product ad, without exception, operates on anxiety. They either induce or aggravate anxiety in the viewer over their appearance, body image, or social status. This is accomplished by signalling a gap between the consumer’s idea of themselves and the image they see in the ad. This gap, or lack, is never explicitly articulated. But it is there and is the source of consumer anxiety.
There will never ever be an ad that shows “regular” or “average” women, not because regular women aren’t attractive, but because it is the anxiety induced by the gap between the female consumer’s self-image and the perception of the model that motivates the purchase. The model is beautiful, I am not as attractive as the model, therefore I am not beautiful. Product to the rescue.
And that has not changed one bit with this ad. So the model isn’t Photoshopped, so what? You’ll still never look like her. How do I know this? First, she isn’t you, so it is impossible for anyone that isn’t her to look like her. (But at some level you want to, which is what establishes the unattainable fantasy). Second, you’ll never look like her because her appearance is still engineered. The model doesn’t actually look like way she does in the ad when she’s walking down the street nibbling apples or scoring meth or doing whatever it is models do in their off-hours. Her image is massively enhanced. The image enhancement simply takes place in the analog/physical domain prior to the shot rather than in the digital domain afterwards. But there is still image enhancement.
There is no point in wishing advertisers would stop retouching images, because it won’t change anything in the slightest. They still aren’t going to put ordinary looking women (or men, or dogs, or cars) in ads because that doesn’t conjure up a fantasy that finds our reality lacking, which in turn induces an anxiety which we will assuage by buying the product. Without Photoshop, advertisers will a priori pick models who naturally have very good skin (and for that reason don’t need that much makeup anyway) and drop them at the first sign of wrinkles. They will construct elaborate color-controlled lighting environments in photo studios, push the limits of make-up artistry, and generally do everything they can to achieve an image that conjures up an unattainable fantasy. But they will never ever use regular looking people.
Advertising will always present you with an unattainable standard of beauty, because if they didn’t, you’d attain the standard, and then you’d stop buying.
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I have noticed this trend of attempting to impart technological terms to makeup (blu-ray, HD etc) to borrow some of the glamour of the artificial. We’re coming to a point in popular culture where technology sets the standard for the parameters of our natural bodies. Paging Donna Haraway . . .
Ever heard of “razor-smooth”? How about “horsepower”? Advertising uses language that the masses understand.
I have heard razor-sharp, but not razor-smooth. Horsepower is used mainly in the context of automobiles. Never heard it used to define a human body.
Technology has long been a part of cosmetics advertising. Even to the extent of science fiction technologies that don’t exist. Take “Time-Defy Serum with Pentapeptides”. Does the average consumer know what pentapeptides are? Does it matter? No – it’s science!
And whatever this serum does, it doesn’t defy time.
And then there’s Garnier’s “Gravity Defying” face cream, developed by dermatologists to defy the laws of physics.
There is a difference between using pseudo science to imply your product has miraculous qualities and comparing the body to technological innovations. In what way is this woman’s appearance supposed to be “HD”? Isn’t HD itself a technological innovation created to mimic our visual perception of the world? Wouldn’t any real face, then, already be in HD? What this product wants us to think is that our natural skin can take on the appearance of what we see on TV. Most beauty products have used the natural world as referents. Real human skin, but younger, fresher, free of blemish. This ad is using the mediated images from our screens as the ideal of human skin. It assumes that you need to manipulate your recorded (video or photo) image, that your picture is more “you” than your real self. So maybe we can throw Baudrillard in here too.
Advertising must present you with the gap between what you have and what you want, and present its product as the gap-filler. The entire point of advertising is to get you to buy a product, and it can’t do that unless it can present you with a reason to buy it. They must present their product of being some benefit to you. There’s no way it can benefit you unless there’s a gap between what you have and what you want. So all advertising is designed to find and expolit that gap.
Because this is true of all advertising, it seems to me that criticism of makeup advertising actually is industry-specific. No one really cares about whether their dog actually will look the way the dog in the commercial does. It may be true that the criticism towards the makeup industry would be more properly directed towards the consumers of its products. But it’s easier to blame the few than it is the many. It’s easier to tell people that it’s the makeup industry’s fault for creating unrealistic standards than it is to tell people that it’s their fault for adopting those standards. The masses bear some blame for this, but the masses always get excused because the masses always get catered to because there will always be products to sell tomorrow. No one wants to alienate the masses.
They must present their product of being some benefit to you. There’s no way it can benefit you unless there’s a gap between what you have and what you want.
I agree with much of what you say, except this. I think there is a gigantic, yawning chasm between the first sentence here and the second. The first sentence deals with what is knowable to the advertiser. Market research can uncover the problems or frustrations consumers have with makeup, and producers can design products that address those.
But the sentence sentence deals in the unknowable. How can they know what “you” have, for every value of you? And what does “have” mean in the context of beauty or appearance? What you want is usually a fantasy, mercurial and elusive, based as it is on self-image and your perception of and relation to others that is created as a product of media images and advertising.
The gap is introduced by the ad. It is created as you see it. You see what looks real but which differs from your reality. The ad creates a perception of difference, a perception of lack. The difference is entirely subjective. One viewer sees her as more beautiful, another sees her as more popular, another sees her as happier, another as more interesting, etc. What is perceived to be different differs for every human brain that encounters the ad. But everyone perceives that difference. This difference, or gap, or lack, is the source of anxiety, the attempted resolution of which to buy.
The act of shopping for makeup, the act of buying this product or that product and the emotional context of it, can be generalized to the act of becoming. Becoming popular, becoming beautiful. This is why advertising is kinetic art. But you are never finished ‘becoming’. You never get there. Mostly because there is no there there.
Interestingly enough, and I may be mistaken, but I don’t think this is the first time you’ve written “sentence sentence” when you meant “second sentence”.
“How can they know what “you” have, for every value of you?”
It seems to me that you’re trying to explain this from the consumer’s (or audience’s) perspective instead of the advertiser’s. For example, I don’t need this makeup. I am not the target audience for this ad. They don’t care about me. And yet, this ad may wind up being included in a magazine I read. Why would they do that when I’m not the target audience?
Because it doesn’t matter that I’m not the target audience. They’re not trying to advertise for “every value of you”. They know that those who are interested in the ad will pay more attention to it, while I go get a beer or go to the bathroom. I’m not the target audience for every single ad on television. I’m not even the target audience for most.
Advertisers do their best to target the particular demographic they’re looking for by, for example, advertising makeup in women’s magazines and advertising toys during children’s programming. They don’t care about me unless they think they can sell me something.
One mildly interesting thing – the fact that her camera isn’t on actually adds to the authenticity. Because the way screens refresh is good enough to fool a human eye but not a camera, screen images tend to look very weird when reproduced by a camera or a video (as anyone who’s filmed a home movie near a TV knows), and so screens are always left blank, with the fake screen-shot photoshopped in later.
Not everyone would pick up on this, but if you’re making an ad with a specific mind to what the feminist deconstruction will be, you need to keep such details in mind.
Worth noting, too, that OkCupid did some statistical analysis a while ago that showed that people whose profile picture was taken with a high-end camera rated much higher; from memory, even when a person had two different photos with two different cameras, their rating rose as the megapixel count did. So I guess the cover-girl look is attainable; don’t buy the makeup, buy the camera.
If you check the high-res version (or zoom in the normal one) you’ll see her camera *is* on (well, they surely ‘shopped it anyway, since it would probably be impossible to photograph without getting a lot of noise that ruined the shoot)
You guys are missing a couple of points.
1. Of course it’s a prop. We wouldn’t know she was taking her picture if she weren’t holding a camera, and you need the camera to tie in with the “HD” name, as in, “Shooting in HD requires paying a lot more attention to your set dressing and makeup… You can see EVERYthing.”
2. I don’t see an image on the camera’s screen. Using a slow shutter speed would let you capture the image, if there was one. The real danger, with a faster shutter speed, is capturing a partial one, which would look dumb. And since we aren’t retouching, we aren’t allowed to fix that.
3. Ironically, this only makes it MORE authentic, since these cameras go dark at the moment the picture is taken. (At least mine do, e.g., Canon SD1200IS. YMMV.)
But, yeah. I think the thing’s off.
BTW re the Okcupid stats, not only are cameras getting better, there’s a huge difference between DSLRs and these little pocket cameras. Different sensor technologies. Pixel count is not the only thing that matters.
The “ads cause anxiety” story is ancient and well-worn conventional wisdom, and like all ancient and well-worn conventional wisdom, it could stand some examination. Or if it can’t stand any examination, let’s abandon it.
What would be a cool would be website, maybe a “weblog”, where folks took a long cold look at old and well-worn conventional wisdom from a non-ideological standpoint, and gave it a good kicking to see if it held up. I’d put that in my RSS feed, you bet.
“They still aren’t going to put ordinary looking women (or men, or dogs, or cars) in ads because that doesn’t conjure up a fantasy that finds our reality lacking, which in turn induces an anxiety which we will assuage by buying the product.”
You haven’t said much to back up your claim that pictures of beautiful women work by creating anxiety.
There’s a question you’re not asking here: What’s so special about extraordinarily attractive women, men, dogs, and cars? Why do you think our reality seems “lacking” when we compare it to them? What do they do for us that the average examples don’t? How? Why?
We like looking at them. We always did. Homer wrote about goddesses going mad with jealousy because Helen of Troy was so beautiful, and men going to war over it. He didn’t have to explain why her beauty had that effect. His audience knew.
In my experience, with the exception of a few hungry neurotics — the ones who are beautiful compared to the women around them, and know it — women see the whole beauty/fashion thing as a pleasant escape into fantasy. If fashion magazines made them anxious, they’d avoid them. They’re not going berserk fighting Gisele Bundchen over the golden apple.
This is true of the human race in general: For example, the best musicians and athletes are intensely critical of their own performances. The duffers are just casually enjoying themselves. Men who watch football on TV are not experiencing anxiety by comparing themselves to world-class athletes.
In music or sports or beauty, you get a very small number of highly-anxious people excelling, a larger but still small number of highly-anxious people not quite excelling, and millions of amateurs who think the Mark Knopflers and Scarlett Johansens and Joe Namaths of the world got that way effortlessly, and derive harmless pleasure from enjoying the results, and maybe imagining themselves doing the same. They don’t have the insane drive to succeed, nor the natural talent, and it’s not ruining their lives.
Agree that the “beautiful women in ads make real women anxious” trope needs reexamining.
By saying the ad is not retouched they are letting the consumer say, “I can be like her, maybe, if I buy the makeup”.
Retouched here stands for ‘impossible to attain’.
The ad is still a fantasy – all ads are fantasies. Even the Dove ad that shows an elderly woman with peachy perfect yet age appropriate skin.
By saying the ad is not retouched they are letting the consumer say, “I can be like her, maybe, if I buy the makeup”.
Yes, they’re letting the consumer say that. It’s a new wrinkle (so to speak hahaha) on the same old fantasy scenario they’ve been selling for decades. That novelty is at least as much of a message as the message itself, though, and you aren’t making a case for the idea that ads work by inducing anxiety. Actually, are you trying to?
Anyhow, fashion is all about being up to the minute. Fashion is novelty (usually faux novelty). It’s the business of rolling fragments of the zeitgeist into little memetic bon bons and handing them out. After however many decades or centuries, they’ve got a new word to throw around: “Photoshop”! It’s hip, it’s now, it’s on everybody’s lips!
You’re drilling down through one level of bullshit and declaring you’ve hit bedrock and nobody can go any further. Nonsense, it’s bullshit all the way down. Not that there’s anything wrong with bullshit IMHO, if you don’t take it too seriously. And let’s be frank, the people taking it seriously enough to do themselves harm are on the other side of the camera from the customers.
I don’t think most fashion ads induce anxiety. A burning desire for stupid products people don’t really need, but that’s not new.
I think fashion is constructed as a beautiful, glamorous fantasy world that women and to a much lesser extent men are invited to play in. Hence all those fashion mag articles that show you how to recreate the expensive looks of your favorite celebrity, or get the ‘look of the season’ or tell you what eyeshadow color is ‘in’ this spring.
If the models were ordinary looking, where’s the desire and the fantasy? And if you had to be impossibly beautiful to play the fashion game, wouldn’t you just give up?
“What would be a cool would be website, maybe a “weblog”, where folks took a long cold look at old and well-worn conventional wisdom from a non-ideological standpoint, and gave it a good kicking to see if it held up. I’d put that in my RSS feed, you bet. ”
That is an awesome idea. You could even open-source it so that people of various backgrounds could all include their perspectives to achieve a more complete picture rather than the partial objects we all see individually.
But what would you call it?
Yup, the model isn’t Photoshopped. All her body parts are in the same place they were when the photo was taken. However, that doesn’t mean there was no Photoshop involved. This is not the photo the photographer took. This is the photo that came off of the Photoshoppers desk after long hours of applying filters and playing with levels. Retouching just means they didn’t change specific portions – enhance her eyes or plump up her lips. They can still play around with the photo overall.
I must be getting old. She doesn’t look dressed up in a night club. She looks more like she is scantily clad waiting in bed for someone.
There was a really weird study done about how young girls exposure to media didn’t cause individuals to become anorexic— but exposure of a population of young girls caused higher rates of anorexia. Meaning watching by yourself if no one ELSE is watching it, doesn’t make young girls think they need to be impossibly skinny— but knowing your friends and potential mates value impossibly skinny is what changes the standard. I’m not sure exactly how all that worked, but it does make me think with ads like this, it’s not so much, “Oh she’s pretty, I MUST LOOK LIKE HER”, it’s more, “Oh everyone around me can see how beautiful she is and women like that are going to compete with me for friendships, jobs, mates, a place in society etc— I MUST LOOK LIKE HER!”
Quite honestly, I think people are right for competing for social acceptance. The health affects of social isolation, low wage jobs, lack of safe mates—- they suck. Deep down people really struggle to let go of that competition because they know if they let go and try to love themselves and everyone one else as they are without a hierarchy and see humans as all beautiful and equal— other people won’t and they might genuinely jeapardize their well being.
It’s like there are two parallel worlds, one in which girls are being taught to have super duper self esteem and like themselves the way they are (which might not be entirely realistic as the rest of the world won’t do this) etc etc— and the other in which they are being taught that they will be worth nothing if they aren’t as sexy, eye grabbing, and hot as possible.
I hear it often said that women do this to themselves but that’s just silly. Come on dudes, you might not want an impossibly perfect woman, but if there’s a chick that’s slender with big boobs and clear skin and a chick with pasty acne skin, whose overwieght and has frizzy hair— guys do this too. I would believe it if the advertising itself isn’t what causes this in men as much. A large portion of what we think of as female beauty does have to do with signs of fertility and health and pro-social behavior. The fashion industry is offering women tricks to out do their female counterparts and trick the men into believing they are as fertile as their more conventionally attractive peers.
Which females have been doing forever, right? Those tricky sneaky mysterious human females and difficult to sense ovulation periods!!
If you create it (beauty product) and people use it to get an edge, it might be that the healthy people with the higher drive for pro-social behavior, grooming behaviors etc that are going to jump on it— so it might still be a sign of health.
Like for example I don’t wear any make up— and I’ve got oppositional defiant-ness- “No I will not be attractive for you go away!!!!”
I figure people can know this about me and it would seem like false advertising to wear makeup. But I also think there’s a catholic “you must not damage the men’s innocence by being too sexy or they will have bad urges and it will be your fault!!” combined with the whole, seeking to be beautiful in order to be cared about, moving up in society, solicite mates— all being selfish behavior and selfishness being bad. Trying to be beautiful is very very bad. Then again, trying to anything for yourself is very very bad. OMG did I breath which implies desire for life, which is SELFISH!? Oh the badness.
Yes overthink. I’m trying to lighten up about being such a neurotic esoteric catholic pilgrim.
Trust me — no one thinks they are seeing a candid picture of a girl in a nightclub, no matter what the ad says. Women may *seem* stupid, given all the ridiculous claims made by producers of health and beauty products (though these are purchased more with hope than belief in their outlandish claims; if not there would be endless lawsuits for false advertising), but we CAN tell the difference between a photo taken in a nightclub and a professionally composed advertising image. We’re not THAT “anxious.”
And there already are ads that show regular, normal women:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Dove+real+women+campaign&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=fJGTTdbCAoq4sAODsqDUBQ&ved=0CBsQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=775
Yes, “normal.” Here is the casting call for Dove’s “normal women” campaign:
It’s right there in the casting call. “Nice bodies” means “not too curvy” and “flawless skin.”
You thought regular meant people like the people you know and see everyday. What they mean by regular is “Absolutely no actresses/models or reality show participants or anyone carrying a headshot! Real women only!” As opposed to models and actresses, who apparently are not real even during auditions.
stellachiara: we CAN tell the difference between a photo taken in a nightclub and a professionally composed advertising image. We’re not THAT “anxious.”
Of course everyone knows it’s staged. Just like everyone knows ads are photoshopped. So if people already know this, why does anyone care that they are photoshopped? And why do they bother to stage images or retouch photos if we know they are manipulated images?
Because the process of knowing involves recalling something you learned. You have to consciously remind yourself that it’s a staged image. But the act of perception is natural and automatic. You see something that looks real and your brain registers it as real. Your intellect has to intervene on top of that and reevaluate what has been seen.
Consider a magic trick. We all know it’s a trick, right? No one thinks the magician actually has magical other-worldly powers. And yet when the audience sees the trick, the response is awe, wonderment, surprise. But why do you feel that if you know it’s a trick?
Her camera is on. The image on the camera’s screen is just very dark, probably because of the intense lighting that studio photographers use. Also, it’s the fact that the camera appears in the picture at all that tells us that it was not the camera used to make the picture.
To fully appreciate her HD makeup you need some HD glasses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKYKyIObXyM
You are assuming that the point of this ad is feminism.
As someone who loves makeup art (really really loves it, like really does, like I own a small cosmetics store…) I view this advertisement in a different light – “makeupforever products will give you/your client a finish that is flawless yet natural, just like a good photoshop job does”. There are no emotional strings attached for me, there is no twang of “I’m not good enough for the patriarchy, waaaa”. I don’t feel any more sad or wistful when I see advertisements of beautiful makeup, than I do when I read art history or go to a museum and view classic artworks. I am very interested in art and a major hobby of mine is makeup, and I interpret this as an advertisement for a makeup product that will surpass your expectations (the expectations you, as a makeup consumer, may have in place). I don’t like the ad (only because I know it is a lie: the MUFE HD foundation is not all that awesome, it’s too matte and cakey to look anything like a natural finish).
I fail to see the anti-makeup/anti-beauty industry backlash that you are seeing.
Perhaps to an observer who doesn’t give a crap about makeup (such as the overwhelming majority of men and many women as well) then you would assume the point of this advertisement is to REBEL!!! against the mainstream idea that women need to be perfect, photoshopped images for male entertainment. However if you were familiar with makeup industry, thus the pre-existing image of this brand (MUFE) you would understand this is not so.
MUFE is not maybelline and revlon and cover girl and other brands associated with female insecurity. MUFE is more of a “serious makeup artist” brand, much like MAC cosmetics, that is the image they have crafted for themselves. Their signature color is black against a backdrop of vibrant, eccentric colors. They are famous for their artistic, eccentric makeup looks. In so, MUFE has never been associated with the pitfalls of mainstream fashion – women hurting themselves to please men. If MUFE could have some adjectives pinned to its vest, they would be “creative” “artistry” and “professional” and “extreme, vibrant colors”. When I think of MUFE, I think of gay art school kids who like makeup because they are creative and expressive in style. I do not think of heterosexual women who like makeup because they are self hating and insecure and being forced to conform to male desires by patriarchy.
Of course, in reality, the overwhelming majority of MUFE customers ARE females who use makeup for the same reasons as other brands (to be pretty just to attract and please men and for no other reason). That’s not the point. The point is MUFE has an image of being an artist’s brand, they are totally above exploiting women, they are all about fun and self expression and creativity.
Given the background history of MUFE, I completely do not see what you are seeing… this advertisement is saying “get that perfect look to please YOURSELF” vs “look perfect to please OTHERS”.
When I google image “Makeup Forever” I am greeted with hundreds of pictures of artistic, almost drag makeup looks. None of them say to me “I am wearing makeup so as to make myself attractive to men”. Most of the makeup looks clearly intended to be artistically interesting, which most men would find a turn off (“I hate women with a lot of makeup!!!111). Some of the images even feature males wearing makeup..
When I google image “Maybelline” I see hundreds of images of very natural looking prettied up women who are clearly conforming to the male sexual standard (a young early 20s looking woman, or an older woman photoshopped to appear to be in her early 20s, with big eyes and pouty lips and minimal naturally applied makeup).
But anyway, I suppose the crux of your argument is this:
Manipulated female anxiety motivates women to finance and patronize the beauty industry.
Again, as someone who genuinely enjoys makeup, I just don’t view things this way. I view makeup as something fun, expressive, creative, and it gives me pleasure to make it a pastime, just as I also am fond of sketching, charcoal and watercolors in my spare time. When I am not wearing makeup, I admit I do feel inadequate, but it isn’t because I think I look hideous without makeup… I just don’t feel ready to present myself properly, the same way you would feel if you left the house without showering and brushing your hair. You would feel inadequately presented if you had first not combed your hair into place and showered off the funk. I am capable of wearing only a little tinted moisturizer and a natural looking cream eyeshadow, a coat of mascara and lip balm (minimal makeup)… it’s not like I feel completely inadequate about myself unless I have a full face of makeup (HD of course!)
Meh, I just don’t see what you are seeing. Makeup is fun and positive for me and many other people.
You are assuming that the point of this ad is feminism.
As someone who loves makeup art (really really loves it, like really does, like I own a small cosmetics store…) I view this advertisement in a different light – “makeupforever products will give you/your client a finish that is flawless yet natural, just like a good photoshop job does”. There are no emotional strings attached for me, there is no twang of “I’m not good enough for the patriarchy, waaaa”. I don’t feel any more sad or wistful when I see advertisements of beautiful makeup, than I do when I read art history or go to a museum and view classic artworks. I am very interested in art and a major hobby of mine is makeup, and I interpret this as an advertisement for a makeup product that will surpass your expectations (the expectations you, as a makeup consumer, may have in place). I don’t like the ad (only because I know it is a lie: the MUFE HD foundation is not all that awesome, it’s too matte and cakey to look anything like a natural finish).
I fail to see the anti-makeup/anti-beauty industry backlash that you are seeing.
Perhaps to an observer who doesn’t give a crap about makeup (such as the overwhelming majority of men and many women as well) then you would assume the point of this advertisement is to REBEL!!! against the mainstream idea that women need to be perfect, photoshopped images for male entertainment. However if you were familiar with makeup industry, thus the pre-existing image of this brand (MUFE) you would understand this is not so.
MUFE is not maybelline and revlon and cover girl and other brands associated with female insecurity. MUFE is more of a “serious makeup artist” brand, much like MAC cosmetics, that is the image they have crafted for themselves. Their signature color is black against a backdrop of vibrant, eccentric colors. They are famous for their artistic, eccentric makeup looks. In so, MUFE has never been associated with the pitfalls of mainstream fashion – women hurting themselves to please men. If MUFE could have some adjectives pinned to its vest, they would be “creative” “artistry” and “professional” and “extreme, vibrant colors”. When I think of MUFE, I think of gay art school kids who like makeup because they are creative and expressive in style. I do not think of heterosexual women who like makeup because they are self hating and insecure and being forced to conform to male desires by patriarchy.
Of course, in reality, the overwhelming majority of MUFE customers ARE females who use makeup for the same reasons as other brands (to be pretty just to attract and please men and for no other reason). That’s not the point. The point is MUFE has an image of being an artist’s brand, they are totally above exploiting women, they are all about fun and self expression and creativity.
Given the background history of MUFE, I completely do not see what you are seeing… this advertisement is saying “get that perfect look to please YOURSELF” vs “look perfect to please OTHERS”.
When I google image “Makeup Forever” I am greeted with hundreds of pictures of artistic, almost drag makeup looks. None of them say to me “I am wearing makeup so as to make myself attractive to men”. Most of the makeup looks clearly intended to be artistically interesting, which most men would find a turn off (“I hate women with a lot of makeup!!!111). Some of the images even feature males wearing makeup..
When I google image “Maybelline” I see hundreds of images of very natural looking prettied up women who are clearly conforming to the male sexual standard (a young early 20s looking woman, or an older woman photoshopped to appear to be in her early 20s, with big eyes and pouty lips and minimal naturally applied makeup).
But anyway, I suppose the crux of your argument is this:
Manipulated female anxiety motivates women to finance and patronize the beauty industry, that is wrong
Again, as someone who genuinely enjoys makeup, I just don’t view things this way. I view makeup as something fun, expressive, creative, and it gives me pleasure to make it a pastime, just as I also am fond of sketching, charcoal and watercolors in my spare time. When I am not wearing makeup, I admit I do feel inadequate, but it isn’t because I think I look hideous without makeup… I just don’t feel ready to present myself properly, the same way you would feel if you left the house without showering and brushing your hair. You would feel inadequately presented if you had first not combed your hair into place and showered off the funk. I am capable of wearing only a little tinted moisturizer and a natural looking cream eyeshadow, a coat of mascara and lip balm (minimal makeup)… it’s not like I feel completely inadequate about myself unless I have a full face of makeup (HD of course!)
(fixed broken HTML tag, plz delete first attempt. thx).
This analysis is almost Lacanian, with a few modifications. The problem is fundamentally that your sense of self is dependent on the external world. The things that you use to identify yourself to yourself are either a name or a face – but these are both ways that you are for others.
I’m sure everyone has had the strange experience of looking in the mirror and not recognizing yourself for a second. Or seeing a photo for yourself and saying, “That doesn’t look like me.” How could it not? Even more fundamentally, the mirror image that you do recognize as yourself is in fact, laterally inverted – mirroring the mirror image restores your “true” face, but this also looks odd.
So the cause of the anxiety is due to my inability to really control “who I am.” My image is outside of me, at once the thing that most makes me me, and yet also wholly strange and external to me. And I must continually try to reassert control of it. It seems that the problem of beauty is related to this – a woman wants to appear attractive and desirable to others, so that they like her. But then she ends up feeling that this is a false form of love, they only love her for the false surfaces, not the “real me” inside. But if she shows the “real me”, she will be judged as less beautiful.
Lobbying for more realistic standards of beauty reduces this gap, and makes it easier to gain control over the image. But in the same way that the “natural” women of the Dove commercials turn out to be ultimately engineering, the realistic beauty standard also covers something up, because it seeks to deny or repress the very real possibility for the face to lie. If I assert that “this is the real me,” it’s unquestionably authentic and cannot be doubted by others, so I can determine who I am. But to wear obvious make-up is to invite the traumatic question, “Who are you, really?” for which the only true answer is “I am not sure.”
Then again, advertising does similar things with qualities other than beauty. They often try to associate products with qualities such as intelligence, integrity, cleverness. And they spend who-knows-how-long engaging in the equivalent of photoshopping to do so. They test-market every word to gauge its effect on the masses. If we expand from advertising to the entertainment media, I would wager that this effect is multiplied many times over. The celebrities that our society seems to worship are not as smart, honorable, or funny as the characters they often portray. Is that really any different than photoshopping?
Great takedown of this campaign–I was suspicious from the get-go and when I saw it being heralded in the beauty blogsophere as something we should be excited about, I realized that Make Up For Ever had won. There are no barriers being broken here, despite the weak claims being made by a handful of people: What we learn here is that consumers no longer wish to look authentic; we wish to look Photoshopped. We wish to look like digital versions of ourselves.
I included this in my weekly links roundup–thanks for the material.
http://www.the-beheld.com/2011/04/beauty-blogsophere-4111.html
Tanks for the link!
Counter argument :
What’s wrong with BEAUTY?
Why is it bad or somehow wrong to want to be more beautiful? Women are brainwashed to think that trying to enhance your looks is wrong, stupid, vain, deceptive, etc. I can’t for the life of me figure it out why this is a widespread opinion. Is it because you personally are too fat , old, ugly to pull it off (if you are female)? Or is it because you know that put together women who are hot pieces don’t want anything to do with you, so you find them obnoxious threatening and angering?
Is it because the male brained person typically has little interest in aesthetics and beauty? Men do not like decorating, do not like making things pretty, do not like shopping, do not like dressing up. THerefore, anyone who does is stupid and being manipulated.
You know what I think is “stupid”? Sports. Football. Caring about one team over another team. Watching an athletic competition and yelling about it. Reading about fantasy football. I think that’s really fucking stupid and I secretly wonder if people who are really into sports are not that intelligent.
But you know what, I also say to myself : “even though it seems stupid, it seems as if a lot of guys like this for some reason, so maybe it is just something I can’t understand due to the fact I am female and am gender typical in this way. I guess I just can’t get the interest, no matter how hard I try to pay attention, I always get bored and find team loyalties and athletic competition to make zero sense or hold zero interest.”
I have enough insight to realize that my interests are not universal.
I can’t help but notice our culture tends to take the interests which appeal to feminne people and girls (such as: justin bieber, twilight, and beauty/fashion) and universally label them as stupid mindless or bad.
Meanwhile idiotic male interests such as extreme sports, football, maxim/playboy/porn, that’s considered okay. Women are expected to pretend to like these things, and many women DO pretend to like football, sports, and to pretend to be into porn just like guys are. Find me a guy who pretends to like the stuff girls like?
Perhaps I only think about these things because I am bisexual, so I am used to analyzing gender boundaries (guys think like that, girls think like this) as a way of understanding myself and how I personally feel and where I fit. Most people never think about it because most people are entirely gender congruent (both heterosexual as well as gender conforming) so they just accept everything default.
But yea. I’m sorta tired of feeling like I am a moron for being interested in aesthetics and fashion and makeup art and being told that I only do so because I am a self hating brainwashed culture drone. This is so far from the truth. If anything my interest in aesthetics is because I am an individual and like to express myself this way.
Why are we painting women interested in beauty as victims who are brainwashed in need of saving?
I”m tired of this being the default assumption.
BTW you can be heavy and /or conventionally “unattractive” and still enjoy beauty and fashion. No one says “no fatties allowed” except you men.
Don’t hide behind the passive voice. When you say “Meanwhile idiotic male interests such as extreme sports, football, maxim/playboy/porn, that’s considered okay” who is doing the considering? Considered okay by whom? Whop is this authority that designates something as okay?
It doesn’t exist.
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