Class 5, Assignment 5

After watching this video by Dove where women get photo-shopped into cover models, I was interested and surprised to see that the women preferred how their unedited images to the after shot. I think that their identity (who they feel they are) must be tied to the usual body image (what they feel they look like), and clearly identity is intricately tied to self esteem (how one feels about themselves). I feel that the over use of photo-shopping in our culture has produced impossible standards of beauty in everyday life. This can leave people feeling inferior and attempting crazy strategies to live up to what one thinks is the norm. I am glad to see that these women are confident in who they are. I suggest watching this other video by Dove to add to this discussion on body image, personal identity, and self esteem. In this video women first describe themselves to a police sketch artist who cannot see them. Then a stranger who has just met the woman (one of the other women in the experiment) describes the person to the sketch artist. The comparison of both images is pretty shocking - all of the women describe themselves as much uglier, older, and frumpier than do the other people. In light of the talk on photo-shopping, I believe this shows that the women in our society have low self esteem in terms of body image. Also, it shows the discrepancy between what people think they look like and how others perceive them.

For further discussion I pose the question, how does altering an image change others perceptions/expectations of the person in the image?