Just to throw this out there, we are (well most of us anyway) outraged when news organizations photoshopped images and put them on the front page of newpapers and newsmagazines. (Iraq, OJ etc) because it was argued, that they changed the facts, or it manipulated our perceptions of what really happened.
It was the equivalent of a reporter writing lies in his article or slanting it in chosen directions. Hmmm. Well don't they anyway. Is news really pure and neutral. Are unretouched photographs not chosen with a particular slant to press home the point of the editor. Do not editors even in unremarkably stories choose unflattering pictures of the politician that they wish to demonize or ridicule because he is not from the same political cloth as the rag he works for.
But if news stories, fudged with photoshopped exagerations or outright misrepresentations is so powerful that it has the whole media in an uproar, and people fired from their jobs, doesn't that say something about the power of a picture. Is it because photographs are so powerful, they leave an indelible impression that imprints on our brains. Is reading about a brutal murder anywhere near as distrubing as seeing pictures of it.
It has been proven that celebrities on the cover of magazines, even ones that are not even slightly related to the inside material, help sales of the magazines on the newstand. Same with eye contact. Beauty/sex sells. Naturally these images are manipulated generally because these people are mostly an illusion, a person turned product, to be sold for the profit of some corporation. Be it music, movies etc, this beauty illusion, is all part of the packaging of this commodity.
Do not these same innocuous often banal pictures taken en mass, thousands of them a week bombarding our senses, start people to be unconsciously motivated to mimic the looks they see, or if not, to feel less than happy about the way you look. Or your wife looks.
Do not these beauty images reinforce the view that you, the way you are, is not good enough. You need a make over. You need xxxx product to look like this. Spend some money and you can look like this. Buy lipsticks, makeup, diet pills, shampoo, breast implants, nose jobs, teeth veneers, clothes, cars etc etc.
Yet people here rapidly dismiss the ideas that these images are, ho hum, so what, we've always done it, it doesn't hurt anybody, people should know better, ignore them etc.
Well Ok, but if these advertising misrepresentations are no big deal, why the outrage when news pictures are manupulated? Both can lead to destructive behaviors, and both are powerful.
I know. You're going to tell me that they are two different things. I guess my response is, really?
