Sunday Column: Touching Up Cindy Crawford Naked
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*If you read my column in the Sun-Herald or Sunday Age and hot-footed it over here just to see the photo of Cindy Crawford naked in the shower? Click here.
Cindy Crawford is happy to get naked for both men and women. She’s generous like that. Having stripped for the boys via Playboy in 1988 and again in 1998, Cindy decided to mark this decade by getting her gear off for the ladies in US beauty magazine Allure.
To celebrate looking hot, Cindy has been photographed wearing a full face of make-up and some strategically placed shaving cream. I am untroubled by this. The former supermodel looks exactly as you’d expect. Stunning. Sudsy. What troubles me – deeply – is the headline next to naked Cindy.
"THIS IS WHAT 43 LOOKS LIKE” it declares. Like hell it is. The caption underneath reads:
This would be fine had Cindy herself not admitted in 2006 that she first saw a cosmetic surgeon aged 29 and that “…creams work on the texture of your skin but to restore elasticity, I count on Botox, collagen and vitamin injections. I drink a lot of water, watch what I eat, and exercise. But I owe the quality of my skin to my cosmetic surgeon."
Honesty points to Cindy. Such disclosure is rare. And an artfully extended middle finger to Allure magazine for failing to mention the cosmetic surgery, airbrushing the shot to oblivion and then pretending the result was achieved with a sprinkling of antioxidants.
When I posted the Cindy photo and an accompanying rant on my website, comments exploded. Women were exasperated at yet another example of media hypocrisy. Men were exasperated too. By the women. They couldn’t understand why we were kicking up a stink. Typical of this sentiment was a guy who wrote:
"What is it with women and rubbishing other women who are better looking than them? Yeah, no shit Cindy Crawford looks good at 43, she's a supermodel. Allure is obviously trying to sell products, not report the news. Derr! Who cares if she's had stuff done?”
I’ve heard this argument many times from men and while I understand their frustration, they’re missing our point. We’re not rubbishing women who are better looking than us. We don’t resent them for it, in fact, we can appreciate and celebrate female beauty as enthusiastically as men. This is not about jealousy. It’s not even about cosmetic surgery. That’s a personal decision between a woman and her mirror.
This is about deception. When celebrities and magazines claim the secret to flawless beauty and a hot body is confidence and some sunscreen, we know it’s poppycock. And that’s even before the image is heavily photo shopped, transforming it into something that appears human, but isn’t. “Why do you care?” exclaim men. “Why do you compare? JUST. STOP.” Excellent suggestion. If only it was so simple.
Let’s play pretend for a moment.
Pretend the world was full of pictures of naked men. On billboards and the sides of buses, in magazines and ads for beer, cars and deodorant. Imagine there were penises everywhere you turned and you couldn’t escape seeing them every day.
And ALL the images of nude men? They were fake. Every guy had had penile enlargement surgery and afterwards, his penis had been photo shopped to make it look even bigger. So now, all the penises you saw in the media daily were knee-length.
One day, next to a magazine article about a celebrity with a foot-long penis, you read the headline:
"This is what a 43 year-old penis looks like.” The caption underneath read: “Asked for the secret to his long shlong, former male model Marcus Schenkenberg insists he was just born that way. “I wear cotton boxer shorts and have daily showers” he shrugs. “That’s all I do."
After reading a hundred stories like that and being bombarded by 10,000 images of men with surgically altered and digitally enhanced penises, do you think you might look down at your natural, un-photoshopped trouser snake and feel a little…. deflated?
Because that’s exactly what it's like to be a woman in today's media landscape. You don’t have to be fashion victim or a magazine junkie to be bombarded by images of women who have been surgically enhanced and drastically photoshopped. You can’t escape the pop culture wallpaper of it unless you hide under the bed with your eyes shut, which tends to be a little impractical.
I don’t know why so many of us compare ourselves with other women although I agree it’s entirely unhelpful. Particularly when we’re comparing apples with lies and airbrushing.
“So stop buying magazines,” goes the next argument. Well, we don’t want to. There are some wonderful things about magazines – features and interviews and stuff to make and do and buy. Sure, we can steer clear of the mags that make us feel bad and try to limit our exposure to fake female imagery elsewhere but it’s virtually impossible if you want to consume media and pop culture, which I, for one, absolutely do.
What’s the answer? Is it for celebrities to start being more honest when asked about their looks? For everyone to Photoshop a bit less or at least declare it when they do? If you know, please tell me because I’m stumped.
You might also like:
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Cindy Crawford is naked in Allure magazine. And 43.
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Supermodels without makeup
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These are the un-retouched, un-fake breasts of a 33 year old woman who has breast fed two babies. God bless you Kate Winslet.
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WTF: Look how you can use photoshop to make Rumer Willis look ‘better’!
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This is why I’m scared to let my daughter have a Barbie.
“After reading a hundred stories like that and being bombarded by 10,000 images of men with surgically altered and digitally enhanced penises, do you think you might look down at your natural, un-photoshopped trouser snake and feel a little…. deflated?”
“No.”
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Sorry, I realised a much shorter way to say my point.
Mia’s question: Wouldn’t you feel deflated?
Men’s answer: No.
Men simply aren’t as insecure as that. (Surprise! The sexes *think* differently too)
I don’t ‘judge’ people by ‘size’ anyway; I don’t personally think that women should be concerned about how ‘large’ you are, so I don’t care how large I am either. I realise that I’m in the minority in not caring about how big a girl’s boobs are, but seriously, you have no need to be so concerned, it’s not a one-sided issue…
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Although I can understand that women might not like seeing breasts everywhere, consider that men *do* actually see penises everywhere (let’s face it, pretty much all men have at least seen porn, most of them watch it regularly), and it doesn’t really make them feel inadequate at all. Now I’m not saying that the media can be forgiven for inspiring teens to starve themselves to look ‘beautiful’ or anything like that, but I have to disagree with the sexist view that seeing semi-naked or naked ‘unrealistic’ pictures and videos of the same sex is only a problem for women (after all, if you compare the amount of porn watch by men with the fewer amount of sensuous pictures of women which are in common society, men probably see a lot more penises than women see breasts [unless women look up porn too])
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This has been a HUGE issue with me, being the single parent of a very impressionable 16 year old daughter. People just DO NOT understand the impact this has on young girls who are absolutely inundated with media and images portraying all these perfect women who look nothing like their images in reality. I have watched my beautiful Elisha Cuthbert look-alike daughter (that’s what everyone calls her) starve herself, hate herself, attack herself, pick apart herself, etc. to the point where it’s beyond heartbreaking, simply because she doesn’t think she’s ‘good enough’, or ‘pretty enough’. You missed this point in your article (albeit, a very good article). Grown women are used to dealing with this BS. Let’s focus on these impressionable girls who feel the incessant need to live up to something that clearly does not exist. THIS should be the focus.
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The answer to women having a healthier body image is, firstly, to realise that what we see in the magazines is not real. It’s a fasntasy. Hell, that’s probably why these magazines are so popular among us women anyway. It’s why porn is popular among men. Because it’s a FANTASY! When he gets into his bedroom, he doesn’t really expect the same acrobatics from you. (At least I think he doesn’t!) Likewise, we shouldn’t expect to see a Cindy Crawford-like image when we look at the mirror. Surely we know that these people only look like that after hours of make-up and wardrobe and styling and fanning. We know they don’t wake up looking like that. So why do we continue to toture ouselves by comparing our bodies to these digitally created images? I think women generally need to spend more time in the real world, looking at other (real) women’s bodies as sources of inspiration. I think more exposure to that will make us realise the difference between fantasy and reality.
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Hi Mia,
I am writing to comment with GLEE your article you wrote in the Age 5th April in the magazine attachment M, regarding ladies and models being airbrushed and have had cosmetic surgery.
My male partner read it out to me, with surprise, that another woman could think like me!
For many years I have thought and stated the exact things you stated in your article- especially the billboard scenario!. He has always thought that “no other woman could think like I do”.
I feel that men could not even bear the mere thought of male billboards undermining their masculinity, let alone actually living it on a daily basis.
If I was capable, I would love to organise psychology eternities, Universities etc to join with major marketing companies, to carry out a study (for some years), the effects on males (and relationships), if marketing was PREDOMINATELY MALE. This would mean, items such as large billboards with men looking sexually down on men as they drive through the city; men looking sexy in car magazines, television advertising, while depicting women just as a presence, not the central figure.
I believe that men would, only then, have an idea what it is like for women to have false women and high expectations shoved in their faces, where ever they look!
Good one you Mia- I know Thousands of women think like you do- go girl go!.
Yvonne Biasol
Portland, VIC
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Dear Mia,
Please see email sent to you from me just before Easter, re your column on Cindy Crawford.
I perhaps sent it to the contact email address
info@mamamia.com.au by mistake instead of posting a comment here. Sorry!
Regards.
Vicki
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Just thought I would also add something else, have a think about this girls. If every woman in the world decided that they were completely happy with the way they are and that they did not need ANYTHING to make them happy (well maybe a lil bit of chocolate every now and again), whole companies would go broke, the stockmarket would freak and even the black market would be at a loss. Bit creepy when you think that companies are relying on the fact that your NOT happy with yourself.
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hey ladies I just want to let you know that I can touch up any of your photos if you want. I am doing a bachelor of arts, design and communication and part of that course involves me using photoshop to edit photos. You want genourmous lips, you got it. You want big blue eyes, no problem. You want perfect plastic skin, easy. EVERY woman in the world needs to remember this EVERY time she sees an image that is out in the advertising world. Most ‘beauty creams’ DON’T work, its just false hope that most of these advertisements are selling. EVERY woman is beautiful in their own special way. Beauty is only an illusion!
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gigdiary, you think the penis analogy is laughable?
Isn’t the photoshopping of Britney Spears’ tummy being flat as a tack laughable? Aren’t breasts photoshopped to look like balloons laughable? The photoshopping of women IS as ridiculous as the analogy Mia represents.
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AK – I did things far far worse than air-brush out a mole. You want disclosure? I’ve written a book about it.
Hold on until September.
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Mia, you’re only right about one thing: “This is about deception.”
Deception about “lies and airbrushing”.
1. Lies
I’m not quite sure it’s fair for an ex-glossy editor to rant about non-disclosure when they fail to mention in a body insecurity column they were responsible for perhaps the three biggest culprits of selling said body insecurity: Cosmo, Cleo and Dolly.
You know why I say the ‘biggest’ culprits – these three mags aim squarely at young women who are at their most impressionable age. For many, from this point they are set up for life.
You asked for an answer because you’re stumped, so here’s two suggestions: get rid of these mags (or let’s hope the economic crisis does it for us; sales can only fall so far) or install editors who are honest (Vote 1 for Cindy!) and brave enough to resist the commercial forces that dictate perfection (L’Oreal, PBL Media anyone?).
2. Airbrushing
After the point above, you will possibly argue body love or some such initiative. But I remember a certain (lime!) SJP cover of a certain mag in which the SATC star was Photoshopped within an inch of her humanity and identity for you, as editor, ordered her MOLE be removed. Yes, that’s right. Her most identifiable facial feature was deemed a flaw by a woman who now suggests “everyone to Photoshop a bit less”.
That is but one example, for I remember loads of Cosmo covers with plastic fantastics in little hotpants during your time. (Disclosure: This is not to say I didn’t enjoy your mags, because I did). But I suppose writing about Photoshopping now is not deception, it’s hypocrisy.
Geting back to my point (and yours, of course): deception is worse. So here’s another suggestion to limit how ‘less than’ women can sometimes be made to feel by the media. (I know you’re talking about looks but being made to feel ‘less than’ in terms of intelligence is equally harmful.)
Surely, you or Fairfax should declare your previous role when you choose you rail against things in which you had a hand in a former life?
Mia, you were right about one more thing: “Such disclosure is rare”. Zero honesty points to you.
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I’m going off topic here. I’ve been a reader of MM for some time but only recently starting commenting after reading a post of Mia’s saying how much she enjoyed reading them. She likened the back-and-forth banter to that of a dinner party.
I really enjoy it when we can all sit around over a few wines and debate the issues. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when plates start getting thrown (like in the responses to this post). It makes me feel like I’m back at high school again.
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Happy Birthday Tim … I don’t mind having you around … I think some of the things you say are very valid … maybe you just need to try to be a little less abrasive ??
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Right back at ya gig !
This isn’t an issue that men need to understand & sympathise with … it’s an issue that women need to get over.
My brother shares a place with two Penthouse Pets (lucky boy ?) WRONG – they are gorgeous and sexy and total pains in the arse, constantly complaining how ‘imperfect’ they are – which makes him find them very unsexy & painful to be around. He said “i don’t care how hot they are, they’re head cases”
Maybe if we stop whinging, accept who we are, not bitch about other women who choose to enhance themselves & stop banging on about our insecurities to our men – relationships may improve.
Men aren’t going to go “oh, now I get it … complain til your heart’s content babe” – they are still going to think you are an insecure whinger who holds themself up to an unrealistic ideal.
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Oh Tim seriously?? I’d like to think that if we ignored you for long enough then you would fade away. But clearly that isn’t true.
What some of do and don’t write about on Twitter is completely up to us.
We are not obliged to run every tweet past you for your approval.
If you feel the need to follow our conversations on Twitter that’s your perogative but don’t pretend like you have some moral high ground and need to “call us out” on it.
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your spot on Tim! Happy birthday champ!
Hip Hip Horay!
From The REAL men of Australia
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And for all you twitterers out there, hate is a very strong word…best put where I can see it.
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