At first glance, filmmaker Jesse Rosten’s 2012 video looks like a typical make-up or cosmetics commercial. As the commercial goes along, however, we see that it is an advertisement for a product called “Fotoshop,” a fictional take-off of Adobe’s Photoshop program. Photoshop is a computer image and graphics editor that has long been a primary tool used by the magazine and entertainment industries to make celebrities look pristine in print media. The Fotoshop parody commercial goes on to highlight different aspects of the fictional program, demonstrating the many “benefits” of its graphical editor. Fotoshop is billed as the “secret” that is used in all “beauty magazines.” Now that it is “available to you,” viewers are told that they “don’t have to rely on a healthy body image of self respect anymore.”

discussion

Who is the target audience for this video? What is the purpose of the parody? That is, what is the filmmaker trying to say and to whom is he trying to speak?

What do you think of the practice of digital editing of photographs in popular magazines. Does it serve a purpose? Is it harmful? How should it be dealt with in society?