A Meditation On Teh Boobage
The Supergirl "Smallville" promo photos + Diva Lea = trouble. I knew when I saw the pics earlier in the week that simply no good could come of it, that these shots of Laura Vandervoort with the tube top and the boobies were going to piss her off, and piss off a portion of bloggers in general.
Though we have a newly-visioned "Supergirl" on the stands, it is obvious that that the "Smallville" producers used the "Space Lolita" version for their research & development. But what really bugged me is that after reading Lea's posts on the subject I took a double-take at the photo in question and said to myself: "God, those breasts are HUGE."
The breasts are huge. Nothing wrong with that. If, as Lea posits, some photoshoppery has been done to enhance said boobage, then yeah that's kind of creepy -- though really common.
It immediately brought to mind another photo, this time of Emily Watson on the "Harry Potter and the Order Of The Phoenix" poster. Her under-age boobage is not so very prominent in-and-of-itself -- except for the way she is positioned on the poster. And then, when Googling images of the poster, I found out something a bit more interesting -- on some versions of the same poster her boobs are smaller than others.
Is Watson simply maturing at a faster rate than a family movie can allow? Was a digital reduction in order? Such a situation reminds me of the situation Mouseketeer Annette Funicello faced fifty years ago, when her burgeoning bosoms had to be strapped down as to not scandalize teh childrens.
An impromptu meditation on teh boobage could not be complete without mentioning, in my opinion, the queen of movie poster boobage, Jennifer-Love Hewitt. Her poster for "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" is an absolute classic. Contrast it with the poster for "Can't Hardly Wait," another Hewitt film out the same year. Notice the disparity in mammary size. Was there a reduction or an addition?
Is photoshopping bigger boobs tantamount to the steroids scandal in professional sports? Is it false advertising?
The last boobage I wish to contemplate, at least on this cheery New York morn, is that of Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman on movie posters for "The Fantastic Four." Note that in the first "coming soon" posters, her breasts are very pronounced. But then the images on subsequent posters become far more demure, until in "Rise Of The Silver Surfer" she is just a head.
Why no further exploitation of the formidable Alba physique? Perhaps it is tacit acknowledgement that, in the final analysis, the "FF" flicks are essentially children's movies. We are back in Mouseketeer territory.
Obviously Hermione's boobs are bigger on that poster because it's for the 3D version
ReplyDeleteMaybe they read that article where Jessica Alba said she wants to be treated as a serious actor instead of a sex symbol right next to the pictures of her drooling water all over her boobs.
ReplyDeleteI don't really think that Supergirl's breasts have been digitally altered. Shots of the actress shows that she has "healthy" bust. This seems like the difference between a bra and a tube top that.
ReplyDeletehttp://pics.livejournal.com/divalea/pic/000871xt.jpg
There is a lot wrong with that picture. She looks like she's been stretched to be taller. But The breasts look pretty similar.
I hate to ask, but why "teh" instead of "the?" There's got to be a history there.
ReplyDelete"I hate to ask, but why "teh" instead of "the?""
ReplyDeletethis is my attempt to be "in" with the "with it" culture
Harry Potter buff, here, so I can answer about Emma Watson.
ReplyDeleteThe smaller version is the accurate one. I say this not because I study her bust size, but because there was a big uproar on HP sites when the enhanced poster came out and it was revealed someone had photoshopped her and been fired over it. It was an unauthorized mistake.
As for Alba, who I HAVE studied from time to time, she was photoshopped, too. She hasn't had actual curves or meat on her bones since her Dark Angel days.
I used to like her. Ah well.
The Hermoine example was much discussed on the mugglenet.com. While it seems pretty unambiguous that someone touched those boobs, it is worth noting that this treatment seems part of squeezing the characters into a thinner poster: it isn't just her boobs that are shrunk, but her hair as well.
ReplyDeletei'll defer to Larime's clear cly superior knowlege on this, but as someone who uses photohop, looking at the two images presented it seems to me Emma Watson's bust appears bigger because she's been given an 'outer glow' around the breast area. I don't think she's actually been increased, but the clear intent of the artist was to draw attention to Emmas chest area against the dark of Neville's jumper, which ispretty much as bad.
ReplyDeletewtih the poster for "I know what you did etc." to be fair, the WHOLE MOVIE was an excuse for Jennifer Love Hewitt to parade in a succession of skimpy tops that showed off the unfeasibly large breasts sitting upon her astonishinly tiny torso. Photoshop or not, the poster aptly describes the movie!
for another example of CGI cleavage, who can forget the poster for cruel intentions?:
http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_product.asp?master_movie_id=9857
I personally find SMG sexy as hell, but I never regarded her as the 'biggest' girl in the world, for want of a better phrase. Who knew she had such an enormous (or unnaturally high) cleavage?!
Were'nt all of the last series of FF posters just the main characters' heads?
ReplyDeleteoh, you think she was SHRUNK rather than made bigger? sorry, i missed the point.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my original point remains in tact. In the bigger poster there is a clear highlighting of the breast area - a combination of outer glow and dodging - it is deliberately and subtly turned into a focal point of the poster. the REST of her doesn't have a highlight, only the chest.
this is missing on the thinner poster, hence the chest looking less prominent.
It's possible I'm being naive here, but I did not take the picture of Hermione to be a "boobie" picture even after reading that it was (the "a person was fired!" sounds like a rumor because I've never seen a source on it). I know that making the Simpsons movie, they had to change the dimensions for the movies and I just assumed that the changed poster had a different aspect ratio that made her bustline appear slightly larger (although not so much so that I think I would've noticed without someone pointing it out to me). Again, I don't know anything about advertising, but most of those other pictures (particularly the sexy halloween costume invisible woman with the weird cleavage) seem to be hitting the "sexy" button pretty hard, but the Hermione picture is, even slightly enhanced, fairly modest.
ReplyDelete