Still from "Fotoshop by Adobé" by Jesse Rosten

Tired of the onslaught of unrealistic images that form the bulk of our children’s media diets? Here’s some new ammo: a video that simply and succinctly distills the entire problem into two minutes. The brilliant video is a satirical TV commercial for an amazing new product, offering everyone the opportunity to achieve the kind of perfection we see in celebrities and models. The miracle product can smooth out blemishes and wrinkles, erase years and pounds, and even change the color of your hair or skin.

What is this magical elixir?

Photoshop. For obvious legal reasons, the video uses an F instead of a Ph. But the message comes through loud and clear. “This commercial isn’t real and neither are society’s standards of beauty.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more useful tool to show children how the images of women they see are figments of the digital imagination. Watch it with your kids and explain the absurdity of comparing yourself to something that doesn’t exist. And while you’re at it, take down the whole damn beauty myth — the faux commercial format provides ample opportunity … especially if you hold out for the last line.  Continue reading »

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You're beautiful, baby.

My husband was soaping up in the shower, I was standing on the other side of the curtain: a pink floral fabric wall billowing there between us, an all-too-obvious metaphor. He was silent. I was screaming.

“I gave you my 20s!,” I shouted, exasperated. “Who is ever going to love me like this? Look at me! My body is ruined!”

My marriage was over, and I was sure I was done for. Unlovable. Grotesque. I felt sick, not just because everything I’d worked for my whole life up until that point had been flushed down the toilet, but because the prospect of moving on and finding another lover terrified me. Moving on with not just the emotional scars left from a tumultuous relationship, but a physical scar, too. A giant one. Right above the one part of me that I might eventually be able to lure some other man into poking at if I could manage to make the rest of me look decent in the meantime.

My impending divorce made me hypersensitive about my C-scar, but I’d been making jokes about it since my daughter was born. It’s not so much the scar itself that bothered me — I mean, I’ve been pierced in weird places and I have a few tattoos, so I’m comfortable looking rugged. But what a C-scar does to an already zaftig figure is a bit jarring, in that it turns what was once the gentle curve of the lower belly into an awkward speed bump. And I was convinced that a man would see that — after the years of therapy and positive self-talk it would take before I could start dating — and not just slow down but stop dead in his tracks, put his engine in reverse and drive away as fast as he could.

On the contrary: no one has even noticed. Continue reading »

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Martha Wilson: I have become my own worst fear

Advances in injectables may help  a woman fit into standards of beauty. But just because she’s more sexually attractive doesn’t mean she’s more personally attractive. A Canadian study asked participants to evaluate women who had been treated with Botox and those who were aging naturally.

The (not entirely surprising) results? Women with the ‘Tox were rated as “cold” and “unfeeling” compared to their wrinkly, saggy sisters. The participants felt more warm and fuzzy towards the women with unadulterated faces, believing them to be less vain.

It’s been noted in the past that Botox affects the way emotions are interpreted. But I wonder, too, whether there’s something about visibly aging that we associate with warmth…in the form of motherhood.

Continue reading »

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Have you noticed how many new things there are to feel bad about these days? Eyelashes, for example. The idea that your eyes might benefit from a fresh coat of paint around the edges was easy enough for me to swallow. I never saw mascara as a judgment about the quality of my lashes. For me, it was more about whether I wanted to look “done” or not. It  wasn’t until the media campaign for Latisse that I looked at my eyelashes and realized how pathetically sparse they were. And here I was thinking my eyes weren’t one of my “problem areas”. Ha.

Well, girls, there’s a new flaw in town.

It’s in a place you might not have worried much about aesthetically before: your armpit. Continue reading »

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In a world where young celebrities are getting plastic surgery and even teens are turning to Botox, it’s no wonder so many young girls feel anxious about their own looks.  And if a girl manages to avoid the pitfalls of celebrity-induced body-insecurity, the teen magazines will get her.  Packed with Photo-shopped images of impossibly thin models and articles about how to achieve that imagined perfection, even the most confident girl is bound to feel a twinge of doubt when she looks in the mirror.

But what if celebrities and magazines both got realistic about beauty?  What if the message was more about loving yourself the way you are and less about trying to persuade girls that there’s a one-size-fits-all definition of beauty?  Then we’d be living in Penelope Cruz’ perfect world. Continue reading »

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Many — perhaps even most — women wear make-up.  Personally, I don’t like it or even approve of it — it’s disgusting and it hides the real person — but if women (or men) wish to wear it, that’s perfectly okay.  Hair coloring, colored contacts, and even piercings are more serious, but still acceptable in today’s society.  Even plastic surgery and Botox is rather ho-hum these days.  But does that apply to kids too?  Apparently, a British woman who bills herself as the Real Life Barbie thinks so — her daughter has already started using Botox at 16.

Continue reading »

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Move over placenta loaf. Bye bye placenta pill. The new way to remain ultra close with the sac your baby lived off is by smearing it on your face!

Well, sort of.

The placenta facials that are catching on are made up mostly of regular old face creams. There’s just one added ingredient: Continue reading »

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