[Infowarrior] - France May Put Warning Labels on Airbrushed Photos

[Richard Forno]

Monday, Oct. 05, 2009
France May Put Warning Labels on Airbrushed Photos
By Bruce Crumley / Paris
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1927227,00.html
Like many Western countries, France requires health warnings on  
tobacco and alcohol and similar labels on processed food containing  
genetically modified ingredients. France's regulators are also  
notoriously tough on marketing campaigns that make false product  
claims. Now some French legislators want to take consumer protection  
to an unprecedented level, requiring that advertisements, product  
labels and even campaign posters carry a warning when they feature a  
photograph that's been digitally enhanced.

The drive against airbrushed photos is being headed by conservative  
parliamentarian Valérie Boyer, who says the widespread use of digital  
technology to alter images is feeding the public a steady visual diet  
of falsified people, places and products. This artificial reality  
leads people to expect perfection from themselves and the world in an  
impossible way, she says. "When writers take a news item or real event  
and considerably embellish it, they are required to alert readers by  
calling the work fiction, a novel or a story based on dramatized  
facts. Why should it be any different for photographs?" Boyer asks.  
"Rules on food labeling let consumers know the origins of the contents  
and the presence of things like additives and preservatives. What's  
wrong with ... informing them when photographs have also been modified  
from their original form?" (See pictures of doctored photos.)

Advertisers would argue that doing so undermines the allure of  
perfectly photographed people and places in marketing campaigns,  
which, in many cases, is what sells. A svelte model with perfect skin,  
for example, is likely to make you want to eat high-fiber cereal more  
than a model with visible imperfections. Perhaps, says Boyer, but she  
believes that passing enhanced imagery off as the real thing is  
misleading. Her proposed legislation would require doctored photos  
meant for public distribution to carry the warning "Photograph  
retouched to modify the physical appearance of a person." Anyone  
violating the rule could be fined about $55,000. Since she presented  
her draft to parliamentary committees in September, Boyer has been  
joined by more than 50 other legislators who want to see it introduced  
as formal legislation and voted on in the coming months.

Boyer's effort is not only motivated by a fear that consumers are  
being taken for a ride. She also feels the idealized beauty in such  
photos is giving people false expectations of how the world should  
look — and how they should look as well. Because digitally enhanced  
photos are often used in mass-marketing campaigns for everything from  
soft drinks to luxury cars to travel packages, Boyer says the images  
are gradually leading to a standardization of what is considered  
beautiful — and by extension, what isn't. (Read "In the Paris Métro,  
Even Dead Legends Can't Smoke.")

"It's creating parallel worlds: one in which everything in ads and  
photos is gorgeous, slim, chic and what we aspire to, and our daily  
reality of imperfection, normality and frustration that we can't be  
like those other people who — literally — don't exist," she says.

The advertising and marketing industries would clearly be the most  
affected by Boyer's proposed law. But her draft also calls for  
warnings on art photography, press releases and even political posters  
that have been similarly digitally enhanced. The French media have had  
fun with the possibility of warnings being placed on political ads,  
recalling the 2007 vacation photograph of a shirtless President  
Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris Match magazine in which his bulging love  
handles were erased to give him a hunkier form. Boyer — a member of  
Sarkozy's party — meets such sniggering with a swipe of her own.

"President Sarkozy was dragged through the mud about that by media  
that routinely alter photographs without anyone knowing about it, and  
by politicians who don't hesitate to have their own pictures modified  
to remove wrinkles, bags or hanging skin," she says. (See pictures of  
Sarkozy in the U.K.)

Boyer has also authored a pending law awaiting upper house approval  
that calls for prison terms and fines for people who encourage and  
promote anorexia, like those who run so-called "pro-ana" websites and  
blogs. However, she says her new proposal was written less out of  
concern that perfect figures in doctored photos were driving women to  
develop eating disorders and more out of a fear that enhanced images  
were giving the public an intentionally fabricated picture of reality.  
(Read "Study: Is Vegetarianism a Teen Eating Disorder?")

If Boyer's proposal does happen to pass in Parliament, how likely is  
it that the warnings will gain acceptance in France? In a country  
where beauty is revered, it's hard to say how people will feel about  
defacing it with a large black and white warning label.