MICHELLE GAO
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Monday, Dec. 4, 2006
Opinions

TO BE A model is to be pretty. It just makes sense, right? Models are supposed to sell us things. They're supposed to make us want to look and feel as glamorous and beautiful as they are. They're supposed to be the epitome of beauty; they need to be, for us to want to feel that way.

But is that even possible? After watching Dove's 60-second video, “Evolution,” I felt completely shocked.

The video follows the transformation of a woman from absolutely ordinary to billboard-glamorous. If you haven't watched it yet, it goes a little something like this:

A woman walks in and sits down. She looks average and actually very plain: Her skin is slightly blotchy, her eyes are undefined, and her hair hangs limp around her face. The only really outstanding thing about her is her strong bone structure.

Then, makeup artists swarm into the picture, and attack. Her skin tone is evened out, her eyes are lined, her cheekbones are defined, and her lips are suddenly fuller. Her hair, too, has become beautiful: It is now curled and pinned back away from her face.

I personally think that she looks wonderful. Put some makeup on, fix the hair, and BAM. Wow. Good makeover, guys.

But then it got worse.

It went from pretty to inhumanly beautiful.

They put the woman's picture into a photo-editing program and did a variety of things to make it even better. First, they lengthened her neck; next, they slimmed it down. After that, they smoothed out her skin even more, widened her eyes, and then slimmed her entire face down.

The movie ends with a note: “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.”

Uh, yeah. Finding out that the media have gone out of their way to make sure that ordinary people feel inadequate in order to make us buy their products is ridiculous. Ridiculous. If they want models to exemplify beauty, at least find real people who look that way! If you pause the movie right before they put the woman's picture into the computer, I think she looks beautiful. There was no need to make her impossibly gorgeous.

How many girls are going to see that picture, that huge picture on that giant billboard, and want to look like that? A million bazillion. That picture is incredibly amazing. That face is even what some may call perfect; and why not? Goodness knows that there was enough editing done on it.

But then how many of those girls are actually going to try to look like that? How many of them are going to run out and buy a bronzer that promises to make their cheekbones as defined as the picture's? How many of them are going to go on crash diets to try and slim down? How many are going to idolize that model for being so pretty, when, in actuality, some of them might even be better looking than the actual person?

Too many.

And now that I think about it, a year ago in CosmoGirl (yes, CosmoGirl), one of their editors went to a “glamour shoot” for makeup or something because she wanted to see what it was like. They basically fixed her hair, put some foundation on her, took her picture, and said that she could leave. When she saw the picture, it was a complete shock to her: Somehow, they had added all of the makeup on the computer, whitened her teeth, and even changed her face shape a little bit.

I had seen the end picture before I'd read the article, and I'd really liked the eyeshadow. And then I read it and found out that it was a computer trick. It was really disheartening: I mean, at least put the real product on the real model. Don't edit it in.

Still, I'm not going to say beauty doesn't matter, either. It does. It's unfortunate, but it does. I own makeup and curling irons and hair straighteners. But when the media take beauty to the point of artificiality, I think it goes way too far.

RELATED

— Evolution (Dove video): From Model to Billboard in Under 60 Seconds

— Dove Corporation's Campaign for Real Beauty

— Change on the way? Spain bans underweight models: Fashion World Says Too Thin Is Too Hazardous