{"id":22617,"date":"2010-04-17T10:08:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T15:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=22617"},"modified":"2013-12-15T03:29:41","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T08:29:41","slug":"britney-spears-untouched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/04\/17\/britney-spears-untouched\/","title":{"rendered":"Spears and Simpson Take One for the Team… Or Do They?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrea t. B. sent in some photos released by Britney Spears from a series she did for Candies.\u00a0 Below, you can see the images side-by-side, before and after retouching, and get a sense of just how impossibly perfect our physical role models are made to be:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(From the Daily Mail<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Jessica Simpson also appears on the cover of May’s Marie Claire<\/a> without makeup:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I spoke with a reporter at the Associated Press yesterday who asked me if releasing photos without retouching or being photographed with out makeup was a trend.<\/p>\n

Gwen and I agreed that, yes, it is a trend… but only insofar as the rules against doing so are so powerful that even a handful of female celebrities going sans makeup or retouching makes it SO AMAZING.\u00a0 In reality, what’s so amazing about this trend is that these women are choosing <\/em>to release these photos.\u00a0 Photos of Simpson and Spears looking less than perfect are all over the internet, thanks to paparazzi.\u00a0 So it’s not as if un-retouched or unflattering pictures of these celebrities are anything new… it’s the voluntariness of the releases that is so fascinating.<\/p>\n

The romantic might say that they really want to be role models for young girls.\u00a0\u00a0 The cynic, however (e.g., me and Gwen),\u00a0might suggest that there are ways that the might benefit from the release of these images.\u00a0 In\u00a0both cases, this could be interpreted as an excellent career move.<\/p>\n

Simpson has a new show, The Price of Beauty, questioning the cultural construction of beauty (with questionable success).\u00a0 So her photo shoot is likely a way to gain publicity for her program.<\/p>\n

Spears’ motivation is less clear.\u00a0\u00a0 On the one hand, she can claim the romantic narrative and gain the respect and admiration of (more) fans. On the other hand, some of the attention to those (often awful) paparazzi pictures may be displaced by these pictures.\u00a0 The truth is that she has a lot more control over these non-retouched photos than she does the candid shots.\u00a0 In the photos above, she has been made up by professional make up and hair artists and she is being shot by a professional photographer with perfect lighting and excellent instruction.\u00a0 She is also having these photos taken at the height of her fitness when her career is back on track\u00a0 instead of at a low point (psychologically, physically, and career-wise).\u00a0 So, given that all those truly unflattering photos are out there, these really re-represent<\/em> the “real” Spears.\u00a0 They may draw just a bit of attention away from\u00a0those images of her bald and attacking a car with an umbrella.<\/p>\n

Of course, the motivations of Spears and Simpson, as well as the rationales of those in charge of their images, is left mysterious.\u00a0 What do you think?\u00a0 How much of this is about being an excellent role model?\u00a0 What else might be driving their decisions to take the risk of appearing without make up or retouching?<\/p>\n

More discussion and examples of re-touching can be found through <\/span>our retouch tag<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrea t. B. sent in some photos released by Britney Spears from a series she did for Candies.\u00a0 Below, you can see the images side-by-side, before and after retouching, and get a sense of just how impossibly perfect our physical role models are made to be: (From the Daily Mail.) Jessica Simpson also appears on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,287,55,2103],"class_list":["post-22617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-re-touching","tag-gender","tag-gender-bodies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22617"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60298,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22617\/revisions\/60298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}