What do news diva Katie Couric (above) and a model posing for a
picture (below) from one of the latest in a long line of
point-and-shoot digital cameras have in common?
The reality is that both images have been altered significantly. We are looking at different forms of manipulation. Both
pictures have been digitally altered. The surprise here is
that the alterations of the picture showing the model was actually done
inside the camera.
Couric's image was manipulated in post-production process to make her
look thinner. Couric is in good company. Other celebs such as Oprah
Winfry, Martha Stewart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Kate Winslet have also
gotten the Photoshop slim fast treatment during the past few years.
This is the way our culture operates -- women are suppose to appear as
waifish as paper plates otherwise men will not find them attractive.
Men, on the other hand, are support to look manly -- tough yet
intelligent.
When was the last time someone the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly had a little Photoshop tummy tuck?
Now, with Hewlett Packard's slimming feature everyone can be just like Katie, after Photoshop of course.
In HP's latest sales pitch for its digital cameras there is a series of step by step slides that takes the viewer through the simplicity of the "slimming" feature. Losing weight has never been easier or as surreal.
So, what do Couric and the HP ad hand have in common?
To begin with these two examples illustrate the pervasive nature of image manipulation has become in our culture. Why should anyone care if a news image is altered if they have already have the capacity to mess with just about any picture, inside and outside of the camera?
With the ability to alter reality in an instance with the touch of a button -- the digital camera requires no skill in altering a person's appearance -- I am reminded of the French theorist Jean Baudrilliard's classic work on the notion of simulacra. The term simulacra refers to an unsatisfactory imitation of reality – something where only a copy of something exists. There is no original.
Society has arrived at the age of the simulacrum -- a time where the image, according to Baudrillard:
Is the reflection of a basic reality.
Masks and perverts a basic reality.
Masks the absence of a basic reality.
Bears no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum.
Once stripped of its original truth, the sign and the reality it is imbued it with have no equivalence. This imbroglio -- this inability to distinguish fact from fiction -- bears down on us with tremendous force.