Source: Busan Focus, 15 June 2011, page 17
With apologies to the guinea pigs that were the first to receive it, but I’m constantly updating my public lecture on gender and Korean advertising as I get more practice with it—and indeed I’ve just realized I’ve been making a big oversight by not mentioning Koreans’ exceptionally tolerant attitudes towards photoshopping in it previously. Deciding to remedy that in the latest version then, naturally I decided to include one of the most notorious recent examples: singer G.Na‘s ubiquitous advertisements for “Juvis Professional Diet“, which I discussed here. Surely, I thought, there was no greater demonstration than making such an attractive woman look like a virtual alien (or at least her legs).
Then I opened today’s paper…
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The Grand Narrative 
They make so many changes that they may as well just create their own “perfect” body from scratch. The only reason they start with a real body is that they need to put a famous name to their creation.
She looks extremely odd and awkward there. You have any idea what the airbrushing subjects themselves think of all the airbrushing? Are they “flattered”, or horrified or merely resigned?
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Unfortunately, I couldn’t say what their own opinions of it are, as even if the generally tolerant public (or, rather, even more tolerant media) asked, then I doubt few of the celebrities would be in a position to be critical of it, given their micromanagement by and slave-like contracts with their entertainment companies. Having said that, until recently G.NA at least did seem to be partially resisting being so objectified (if not being photoshopped per se), which makes her ads for Juvis very surprising and disappointing.
p.s. I should probably mention that I haven’t looked for celebrities’ own opinions on photoshopping as much as I should have though, and I’d be happy to be proved wrong about them!
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Perhaps you’re right, any criticisms might get censored/filtered by their management. Can’t annoy the people who pay the bills after all!
I look forward to the day that the advertisers can get rid of them pesky, never perfect enough models, and just use their creative talents. Except by then things would have gotten waaaaay too weird.
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Any diet that makes a person look like that should be banned by any food safety administration on the planet.
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I’m glad that you mentioned korea’s tolerance of extreme photoshop, what diet on earth could give you plastic shiny legs!
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I recalled Shin Mina briefly mentioning her Calvin Klein ads were photoshopped and it was treated as a joke. In entertainment, there will be elements of retouching but I think they are taking it to the extreme. No one’s skin is that shiny and smooth, and her head barely looks like it belongs to that body. I wonder about these artist’s self esteem.
http://sookyeong.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/shin-minah-confesses-my-body-in-photoshoot-is-photo-shopped-while-narshas-is-100-natural/
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When I look at that picture, I think “alien”. So I’m wondering, does anybody actually think that she looks attractive in the advertisement? If not, then why would they even do that to the photo? I must conclude that this is considered a desirable look by Korean men and women.
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What is the reaction of young Korean women to an image like that? When I see obviously edited photos that are supposed to look natural, I immediately move my eyes on to something else. Why bother evaluating the appearance of a cartoonishly unrealistic person? As I’ve mentioned before, US beauty and apparel retailers, including Ann Taylor, Talbots, and Lands End, which cater to upper middle-class working women, also lengthen the legs and whittle the waists of women who stand 5’10” tall and weigh 125 lbs. How do Korean men react? Do they find her attractive as depicted in the ad?
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Am I the only one who thinks she look pretty? *except the arms look too scary skinny* but everything else looks gorgeous. I’ve seen gna’s music videos and she looks almost equally skinny, but as a girl the photoshoped figure is appealing. Even her non photoshop figure is appealing. Though the best no photoshop idols are Im Yoona, Seohyun, bora, Uee & Nana. Choi Sooyoung also has the kind of legs that don’t need photoshop because they are so skinny and long (though they kind of scare me). I know this post was old I had to put my input in…
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Sorry for the late reply. And yeah, sure, of course she looks pretty. But that’s despite the photoshop, not because of it!
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