Wiser Men Stay Silent-Via Jezebel-Lena Dunham Responds To Unretouched Images From Her Vogue Shoot:
‘Yes, Vogue is fantasy. But no matter how fantastic the clothes or the setting or the lighting, the people in these images are real — and yet Vogue has to take the reality of a human being’s body and make it part of the fantasy too. It’s escapism, absolutely, but the message is clear: while you dream of wearing that gorgeous dress, you should also dream of physical perfection as defined by Vogue.’
Feminism and feminist ideology, aesthetics, and a woman’s desire to be beautiful are mixing together in the marketplace and public square.
This blog noticed the work of Pascal Dangin a little while back. In the New Yorker, Dangin admits to having worked for Dove, applying some of his techniques (with heavy use of mathematics and computer graphics) to touch-up their photos. You know the kind.
Selva-Real women in Hong Kong?
Full The NY Times had a follow-up piece on Dangin here. Technology changes awfully quickly.
Another Dove photo here.
Regardless of his motives, Dangin considers himself an artist and what he does a pursuit of aesthetics.
Perhaps there’s a tension playing out before us, between the reasoning of academic and institutionalized feminists, the generally upper-middle-brow crust of popularizers, political influencers and professional writers, and on down to public sentiment, the popular culture, mainstream music and T.V. etc.
Sex still seems to be selling, and most everybody is attracted to beauty in one-form or another.