Further to familiar concerns about treating people as things, and previous posts on treating things as people, here’s a creepy case , from Broadsheet, of really making people things! Well, at least, making photos of people look like things: the ‘pageant photo retouching’ site (note the apt web address) offers ‘retouching’ of your pictures of your beloved children. Just don’t expect to recognise them after!
Apart from the fact that its kind of creepy to want a picture of your child transformed to make her look like a doll – check the glazed eyes! – this presents worrying instance of norms of appearance making an entrance earlier and earlier.
No longer is it ok to capture your baby or toddler, smiling droolily – such a snap just won’t cut the mustard. You’ll need some airbrushing of the drool out, for a start. Perhaps, then, some dark circles removed, some skin tanned, some arm reshaping (?), some make-up added…
As your children grow up, with this doctored pic gazing down from the mantle piece, they can start to develop a sense of the inadequacy of their ‘undoctored’ appearance, hone in on their imperfections…
My talk of ‘children’ here is mistakenly gender neutral: all the pictures sampled on the site are of young girls. Of course.
Feminist Philosophers 