Milla Jovovich Thinks That Airbrushing Encourages Eating Disorders

Great googlymoogly, Milla Jovovich is gorgeous. She’s gorgeous on the red carpet, in paparazzi snaps and when she’s getting paid to be super close to society’s idea of perfect. Despite the fact that even a knockout like her gets the photoshop treatment(and gets paid for it), Milla Jovovich thinks that the airbrushed images in the media reap lofty repercussions. Jovovich’s heart is in the right place, but her actual comments are a little bit off. She said:

”I feel like in America you know there are two strings; either obesity or anorexia and I think both of them come from this perception that people in magazines actually look that way,”

Yes! Aggressive doctoring does set up literally unreal expectations for women. We think people in magazines do actually look like those fantasy pictures because they’re supposed to be photographs of real people. I’m not quite sure I follow her logic on how photoshopping leads to obesity, but I agree that it contributes to negative body image and the like. Also anorexia is far more nuanced than a yearning to look like a “super goddess” fashion model, but yeah, airbrushing sucks big time.

Leeloo went on to say:

“So everybody tries to be airbrushed, everybody wears so much make-up to look perfect but just end up looking crazy, you know? I think European women are just much more chilled with it, they kind of don’t expect that they should look like a magazine walking down the street, because nobody does.”

Totally agree, the pressure to groom and preen so much is awful! But I don’t think we should be criticizing other people for “looking crazy” for succumbing to that gross pressure you’re talking about. Plus, I hate the American women are like this and European women are like that dichotomy; it tends to make American women out as vain, high strung, or just generally worse compared to their/our European counterparts. I’m an American girl and I get what she’s saying, but it’s 2013 and the internet is a thing and ugh, I’m sure European women and girls are stressed out about their bodies too. I bet some of them even wear “crazy” makeup.

I wonder if there is anything models and celebrities who get photographed frequently can do to curb egregious photoshopping. Like, can they stipulate that images of them used must actually represent what they look like? Add a “no P.shopping” clause to their contracts? I don’t know, I’d definitely let myself be photoshopped because I’m a dirtbag and I want to see what I’d look like in the uncanny valley.