Model v Photoshop
‘There’s no need at all.’
Seeing herself altered to look a certain way sparked something inside Jess Quinn, a young woman on a mission to fight body image stereotypes. The 26-year-old is a model and social media influencer who was a finalist in the 2018 Dancing with the Stars. She is also a cancer survivor and amputee, after losing a leg to the disease when she was 9 years old.
Quinn’s quest is to persuade MPs to introduce a law that requires any commercially used photo of a model that’s been significantly altered to carry a caption saying so.
“I had an image of my own Photoshopped. It was subtle . . . and I think it was not a fun thing to go through. It kind of opened my eyes that it’s still going on now.”
The photo was altered in an issue of the Australian Women’s Weekly. Editor Michele Crawshaw couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday, but told media at the time many organisations altered images before publication to enhance lighting.
Quinn, who studied fashion at university, said she always knew it went on but did not think she would experience it.
“In this day and age — where we’re so open about body image and being true to ourselves — I thought [it would be] minimised. But with social media and all of these other pressures, it’s kind of growing.”
She wanted girls to be able to look at magazines without comparing themselves with something that was not reality. “All of these models are absolutely beautiful people, naturally. There is no need to Photoshop them at all. Yet they’re being Photoshopped to the point where they have no flaws, no moles on their skins, no slight scarring — nothing.
“And these young girls are comparing themselves to something like that and, a lot of the time, they don’t know that image is being Photoshopped.” Quinn’s petition is due to get started over the next few days. Her goal is to get 100,000 signatures before it goes to Parliament. She says she was advised to start a petition by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, after Quinn’s team reached out to her. “To have the Prime Minister of New Zealand reply to a message — I’m sure she’s got some other massive things going on — it was really amazing.”
A spokeswoman for Ardern said the Prime Minister was unavailable for comment, but acknowledged how rare it was to get a reply; given she receives more than 20,000 pieces of correspondence a year.
The petition will go live around the
same time as a TED Talk by Quinn.
The Technology, Entertainment and Design programme is about spreading ideas in the form of short, powerful speeches by people from all walks of life.
Quinn’s talk, Unreality, focuses on body image and the idea life is often not how we think it is.
“When I’ve felt my most beautiful is when I’m confident in my own skin and that kind of has nothing to do with how I look compared to someone else. For me, it was when I didn’t put my worth in my appearance.”
Quinn’s not the first well-known face to speak out over image-altering.
In 2003 Kate Winslet complained after a heavily edited image of herself appeared on the cover of GQ magazine. “The retouching is excessive.”
And Lorde took to Twitter in 2014 to remind people “flaws are okay” after acne was removed in images.