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The femblogosphere is a-chatter over the latest issue of French Elle, which features a series of stars—Monica Bellucci, Eva Herzigova, Charlotte Rampling among them—sans fards—in other words, without makeup. Shine's Jennifer Romolini crows "Yay!" of the Photoshopping and retouching-free issue. It's a call to arms, as she sees it, to U.S. editors in love with images of women that have been airbrushed to death: "So American magazine editors, I plead to you: It's time to step
up your game." Feministing agrees, as if a woman who dares wear no makeup has come to embody the ultimate feminist act.
In contrast, Matthew Yglesias sees beyond the smoke and mirrors art of the stunt magazine spectacle that European editors have mastered as of late. These "untouched" images are no more "real" than they are "feminist."
"Obviously, artifice hasn’t, in fact, been done away with here. The
lighting, the attire, etc. is all being professionally done; vast
quantities of film is being shot and only the very best images
selected; and the 'stars' being presented 'sans fards' are extreme
outliers in the genetic lottery. All of which is no worse than
conventional magazine cover art, but it’s not really any better. And
just at a time when public awareness of the fakeness of magazine covers
is growing, we get a new artifice presented as unadorned reality."
And he is absolutely right. All of which seems to point out what a strange charade 21st century feminism has become, a so-called "movement" in which being "feminist" means carping about milk ads and empowerment is found in staged fashion magazine layouts.