Photoshop... Why Celebrities Are So Beautiful (?)

Image. It seems that today everyone is concerned with image. Everyone wants to look younger, sexier, and "hotter". We are daily bombarded with images of the "beautiful" people; and who doesn't want to look "beautiful" too? Many of us not only admire the beauty of celebrities we see on film, television,in print, and on the web; but we certainly see these images as the standard by which beauty is measured.

The question is if this standard is to high??? Especially when you consider the fact that the "beautiful people" are aided by the magic of things like Photoshop.

Photoshop: to alter (a digital image) with Photoshop software or other image-editing software especially in a way that distorts reality (as for deliberately deceptive purposes)

Many are trying to attain a something that isn't attainable; because it doesn't exist in reality. This unrealistic image is especially horrible to, and for women.

Aishahwarya Rai has been called the most beautiful woman in the world... and it can definitely be said she is pleasing to the eye; but industry professionals have even found it necessary to touch her already wonderful pictures up.Giving her an image that no one could live up to unless they were computer generated.Such computer generated images are used for the "perfect" body types as well. One body can be used to represent the heads of nearly any model... via the magic of technology.

On a recent Katie Couric show; one former industry professional revealed this very fact, and although such foolishness has been going on for years; you can't tell that to impressionable teenagers who believe these bogus images, and obsess over such, to the point of pushing themselves into anorexia and bulimia

Men , although certainly less than women , are also bombarded by images too high to attain. although certainly there is nothing wrong with wanting to look your personal best; where is the 'personal" in personal best.Are young boys also seeing someone else's personal best as theirs? Do we as a society allow media to place expectations too high for our young boys too? I would say certainly!

It could probably be said that all this altering was harmless, and that it doesn't really affect people.If, however that were true then these companies that sell everything from magazines to lipsticks wouldn't continue to shove these images down our throats, and spend the monies(they value so much) to do so.

In recent years too there has been an incredible amount of growth in the areas of cosmetic surgery; for instance, Americans alone spent 10 billion dollars on cosmetic procedures.

Here are some celebrities in their super, and their mortal guises.

Looking like anyone else...

We have a society of people so obsessed with looks that it is often the greatest issue in choosing a mate. This could definitely be reason for rising divorce rates, and a string of other problems that the break-down of family structure can cause societies in general. According to a British Universities study by Dr. Phillipa Deidrichs 30% of women surveyed (2011) would trade one year of their lives to achieve their ideal body weight and shapes.

• 46% of the women surveyed had been ridiculed or bullied because of their looks
• over 90% of the women surveyed said they had negative thoughts about their appearance, at least once a day
• 10% of these women would trade from 2-5 years of their lives for that aforementioned body

This image based society has brought about such tragedy as cosmetic surgery nightmares, tanning booth cancers, anorexia nervosa, and shows like Basketball Wives...

Recently Valeria Lukyanova drew much attention, and was hailed as a "real life' barbie. Many laughed at her, and thought her decision to go under the knife to achieve this status was insane; I beg to differ, because it seems in this current "looks are everything' world she is becoming the norm.

Laurinzo Scott 2013