Jul 6, 2012 1:00 PM 34,877
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39Seventeen Magazine’s New Photoshop Policy Is the Same As The Old Photoshop Policy
Seventeen has at last, in an oblique kind of way, responded to the controversy sparked in April when a 14-year-old from Maine started an online petition calling out the magazine's over-use of Photoshop. That petition, started by a middle school student named Julia Bluhm, quickly went viral and was signed by over 84,000 people. When Bluhm and some other feminist activists went to the Hearst building to deliver the petition personally, Seventeen and its editor, Ann Shoket, would give only a boilerplate response via a spokesperson. (It began, "We're proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue.") The demonstration, though it attracted only five teenaged protesters, was covered by Nightline, the New York Times, and numerous other national news outlets.
Bluhm and the other signatories were seeking a commitment from Seventeen to no longer alter its photographic subjects' appearance with Photoshop, and to publish one unretouched photo spread per issue. Despite the unusual level of media attention, the magazine was slow to react, and when it did, came off as defensive and somewhat miffed. Shoket and other Seventeen staffers were said to feel "aggrieved" by the way the issue had been raised, and when asked directly about her magazine's airbrushing policies, the editor snipped to the Times, "I don't want to get into the specifics of what we do and don't do."
Now, Shoket has used her August editor's letter to — well, not to actually act on anything mentioned in Julia Bluhm's petition, but to more warmly acknowledge its existence. Shoket, rejecting the charge that Seventeen has some issues when it comes to unrealistic retouching, claims that while the magazine does retouch its photos, "we never alter the way the girls on our pages really look." In a "Body Peace Treaty" handily enumerated in bullet points, Shoket says that Seventeen will "Never change girls' body shapes or faces. (Never have, never will.)" The "treaty" is basically an eight-point plan to maintain the retouching status quo. Shoket further claims that Seventeen's retouching has never in the past exceeded removing stray hairs or fixing errant folds in fabric — a claim that 84,000 people have already publicly questioned.
So, a quick list of what Seventeen is not doing under the terms of this "treaty": it is not going to stop Photoshopping its models and celebrity subjects. It is not going to acknowledge that its reliance on Photoshop has ever been in any way problematic. It is not going to commit to publishing any unretouched photo spreads. Lame. [Seventeen]
Source:http://jezebel.com/5923893/meet-seventeen-magazines-new-photoshop-policy-same-as-the-old-photoshop-policy
Bluhm and the other signatories were seeking a commitment from Seventeen to no longer alter its photographic subjects' appearance with Photoshop, and to publish one unretouched photo spread per issue. Despite the unusual level of media attention, the magazine was slow to react, and when it did, came off as defensive and somewhat miffed. Shoket and other Seventeen staffers were said to feel "aggrieved" by the way the issue had been raised, and when asked directly about her magazine's airbrushing policies, the editor snipped to the Times, "I don't want to get into the specifics of what we do and don't do."
Now, Shoket has used her August editor's letter to — well, not to actually act on anything mentioned in Julia Bluhm's petition, but to more warmly acknowledge its existence. Shoket, rejecting the charge that Seventeen has some issues when it comes to unrealistic retouching, claims that while the magazine does retouch its photos, "we never alter the way the girls on our pages really look." In a "Body Peace Treaty" handily enumerated in bullet points, Shoket says that Seventeen will "Never change girls' body shapes or faces. (Never have, never will.)" The "treaty" is basically an eight-point plan to maintain the retouching status quo. Shoket further claims that Seventeen's retouching has never in the past exceeded removing stray hairs or fixing errant folds in fabric — a claim that 84,000 people have already publicly questioned.
So, a quick list of what Seventeen is not doing under the terms of this "treaty": it is not going to stop Photoshopping its models and celebrity subjects. It is not going to acknowledge that its reliance on Photoshop has ever been in any way problematic. It is not going to commit to publishing any unretouched photo spreads. Lame. [Seventeen]
Source:http://jezebel.com/5923893/meet-seventeen-magazines-new-photoshop-policy-same-as-the-old-photoshop-policy
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