Adobe Photoshop is the graphic software for artists and designers alike to alter, create and beautify the world around us. Essentially, Adobe Photoshop professionals make you and I look and presumably feel better about ourselves, but at what cost?

 

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Recently, the African-American chanteuse Beyonce Knowles was given a — how shall we put it — ‘light’ makeover by the magicians over at L’Oreal. Beyonce was arguably a few shades darker before she stepped into the L‘Oreal studio, yet the cosmetics giant categorically denied any such digital alteration. Sorry, but between you, me and the fencepost, strategic lighting can only do so much. More recently in the UK, 60’s modeling icon Twiggy, whose Dorian Gray-style redux at the hands of Oil of Olay, has led even parliamentarians to cry foul on the whole unnatural nonsense. They are going so far as to call for a ban on digitally-altering images for consumer viewing!

But as with most cases where politicians should, but do no not, fear to tread, they’ve missed the point. The shock factor here is not whether the cosmetics industry expects too much of their consumers to believe that these are in fact true images of their corporate shills, but that this is even a controversy at all. Women of all ages in the 21st century are more computer-adept than ever before. Just ask your 10-year old niece how much time she spends surfing for Hannah Montana on the Net. She knows that Beyonce isn’t really as white as the driven snow, and she is pretty sure that her 60-year old grandma doesn’t look as perfectly preserved as Twiggy. Women buy into the fact that these women are selling a dream, not reality. The proposal to ban Photoshop is merely an overreaction of a few MP’s who are offended by the fact their spouses and “others” can never aspire to such flawlessness. And if they can’t have unrealistic looking beauties staring out at them from the pages of the Financial Times then neither can you.

If there is a woman alive today who truly believes that what they see before them is real, then here’s a tip: that gazelle-like supermodel leaping out of the pages of Vogue on impossibly toned legs with hair-extensioned uber-dyed tresses flowing behind her? She’s a fake. And the one who doesn’t have a single pore, hair or freckle hair on her peach-complexioned skin? She’s a fake too. Let’s not get started on the wrinkle-free celebrities or the cellulite-less celebutantes. Remember kids, there is a lot of money to be made by making women feel unhappy about themselves. Photoshoppers are just another bunch of plebes sucking on the teat of the insecurity gravy train. Get used to it.