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The Power These Early Publications Held Over Some Women Is Even More ...


The power these early publications held over some women is even more significant when one considers that the artistic renderings included in themthe ‘graphics'were just drawings. Photography would not become a part of the process for many years: the age of photographic reproduction was still far off, so images included in the magazines were sketches of varying quality and proportion; these drawings were highly exaggerated and understood to be idealized and unrealistic. Even so, the women who read these early publications still felt their impact, and the pressure to conform was felt by many. This influence would greatly increase when actual photographs replaced the drawings as part of the deceptively seductive advertising package.
C. ‘The Camera Doesn't Lie'
The inclusion of actual photographs in magazines heralded change a dramatic and significant change. No longer were articles accompanied by fanciful renderings of what women should look likenow there were actual, live models against which readers could measure themselves. ‘With the mistaken conviction that cameras cannot lie, it was clear sailing for what came to be called the tyranny of fashion', explains Poulton. ‘From now on, women would feel obliged to remodel their body shape in favor of the prevailing silhouette' (Poulton, 1997: 30). There was a scientific precision that photography offered, and it wielded much more power than the often whimsical and sometimes anatomically impossible renderings of a human hand. Yet photography was merely the precursor to what would come next, as magazines became inextricably bound to the world of marketing: ‘Poised on the threshold was another kind of tyranny that would be inimical to women's ability to feel at peace with their bodies: advertising' (Poulton, 1997: 30).
The setup was ingenious: magazines, through both text and photography, would introduce new ideas to women, particularly about ways in which they failed to meet prevailing standards. At the same timeperhaps even on the same pagewould be an advertisement for a product that would help them ‘improve' what they now knew to be flawed parts of themselves. Cinematic portrayals soon became a part of this complex process. As French points out, ‘the debasement of women in art and advertising is echoed in cinematic images' (1992: 164). This was true then, and remains true now. Perhaps no one puts this more succinctly than the American feminist Gloria Steinem, founding editor of Ms., who breaks the process into three parts: to create a desire for products, instruct in the use of products, and make products a crucial part of gaining social approval' (Steinem, quoted in Poulton, 1997: 30).
D. Twiggy: Thin Becomes ‘In'
Weight-loss issues did not gain true prominence until the years following World War I. At that point, corpulence became another problem that women had to deal with. Women began to get more and more messages that indicated that extra weight was taboo.


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