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Demi Moore Goes After Boing Boing Over Hipflesh Photoshop Analysis

by Matthew Zuras on December 30, 2009 at 04:19 PM

If you've been following some of the more banal Internet goings on over the past few months, you've probably heard about the Demi Moore W Magazine Photoshop fiasco. To refresh your memory, Moore appeared on the cover of the December issue with what appeared to be a chunk of her hip entirely missing from the photo. Many assumed it was an attempt to slenderize the actress.

Boing Boing published an article back in November, shortly after the December issue of W hit the stands, positing that Moore's hip had been digitally reduced. The photo made the rounds on countless blogs, and the general sentiment was that something fishy was afoot. W Magazine, Moore, and her lawyers all emphatically claimed that the image was not altered.

Photoshopping of fashion photography is fairly standard (France even wants to include disclaimers on 'shopped images.), but some of the exceptionally bizarre anatomies digitally concocted by retouchers (many of whom have apparently never seen a naked human) often appear on the Internet to much LOLing (cf. Photoshop Disasters).

Well, Boing Boing -- as well as a host of other sites questioning the actress's supposed bone structure -- just received a threatening letter from Moore's lawyers, demanding that it remove the original posting. At the very same time, the January issue of South Korean W came off the presses, featuring the same image of Moore on the cover, but this time -- here's the kicker -- with a normal-person hip.

Now, we are not suggesting that either the U.S. or the Korean version of W Magazine incorrectly presented the actual hip of Ms. Demi Moore. (You hear that, lawyers? Not trying to get litigious here.) But we would like to suggest that regardless of whether Moore's hip bone has a bizarre indentation or not, it is fascinating that South Korea got the version that more closely resembles a human's physique. Why? Because, according to a report earlier this month, one in five South Korean women intentionally starve themselves "to be beautiful." So, kudos to W South Korea for giving its readers a more realistic ideal.

While it may seem like there are more pertinent issues in the world on which to focus -- like underwear bombs and 'Avatar' -- this Shakespearean pound of flesh amounts to the reality of "truth" in advertising today. C'mon, W -- hath not the Internet eyes? [From: Boing Boing, via: The Consumerist]

Tags: ads, advertising, anorexia, body image, BodyImage, demi moore, DemiMoore, photoshop, photoshopped, south korea, SouthKorea, top, truth in advertising, TruthInAdvertising, w magazine, WMagazine

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