These Activists are Pushing to Ban Photoshop, and It's Working
Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
In much the same way that cigarettes receive a warning label from the Surgeon's General, a growing number of countries are passing laws that require photos of models that have been heavily Photoshopped to receive warning labels.
These anti-photoshop laws are in response to ongoing public outcry over the way women are unrealistically depicted in ads for clothing and makeup.
Israel's Photoshop Law
Israel is amongst the world's most strict country on Photoshopping of models for advertising purposes.
Israel passed the Photoshop Act back in 2013 that prevents advertisers from using models with a BMI of under 18.5 (for your reference, a 5'10" model who weighs 129 pounds would have a 18.5 BMI). It also requires advertisers to flag photos that have been retouched.
What Others Are Doing About Crudely Photoshopped Models
The same model, featured in different Ralph Lauren ads. The photo on the left caused immediate public outcry a decade ago.
France requires any photo that uses Photoshop to make a model either thinner or wider to have a label saying so. French models also must undergo a health exam once every two years to determine whether they are healthy enough to work.
Getty Images, the huge stock image website, banned any photos with models "whose body shapes have been retouched to make them look thinner or larger."
Why Are There No Anti-Photoshop Laws in America?
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is America's governing body over advertising in the states, and while the FTC has been enforcing truth-in-advertising laws since it was created in 1914, these laws have yet to be used on images.
To combat this, a senator introduced the Truth in Advertising Act back in 2014. The Truth in Advertising Act specifically requested that the FTC submit a report to Congress outlining ways the commission could reduce photoshopping of models in advertising.
The act died after Congress refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.
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So, the fashion industry in America has been left to essentially regulate itself.
And regulate it has.
Or, at least, some companies have.
Companies Refusing Photoshopped Images
Dove created the Body Evolution campaign in the early 2010s to examine exactly how pictures of women are distorted through Photoshop.
Others quickly followed. ModCloth, a vintage clothing company, became the first company to sign an anti-Photoshop pledge in 2014.
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Target now refuses to Photoshop women in their swimwear lines, leaving in things like stretch marks and cellulite.
Aerie, a women's underwear company, ditched Photoshop back in 2014 and the company's sales surged in response.
As recently as 2018, CVS decided to brand all of their photos that have remained largely unaltered with a "CVS Beauty Mark."
The Photoshop Fight Rages On
As with most grassroots campaigns, individuals remain largely at the forefront of the anti-photoshop campaign.
A number of anti-photoshop Instagram accounts have popped up with huge amounts of followers. The goal of these Instagrams is to point out celebrities who post photos of themselves that have been altered to change their body proportions and skin tones, as well as to point out magazines that do the same thing.
The individuals who run these Instagram accounts run two photos side by side, the original photo and the photoshopped photo. Some of the photoshop jobs are egregious, while others are more subtle, but they all are trying to make these models and celebrities skinner, more evenly proportioned or lighter/darker.
How do you feel about this anti-Photoshop rhetoric?
