Haul out the pearls and clutch them tightly, folks, the prudes are on the prowl. At least they were at a high school in Utah this week, where it seems someone decided to Photoshop pictures of girls in the yearbook to adjust their tank tops and low-cut tops ... without telling the girls or their parents.
What Wasatch High School claims was meant to bring the photos up to dress code is being criticized as slut shaming the young women in question -- and for good reason! A comparison of some of the altered photos shows random sleeves added to some girls, and necklines brought up over non-existent cleavage. Even more confounding, other photos from the yearbook remain untouched, despite presenting some of the same "problems."
It's not out of the ordinary for a school to have a dress code, or even for tank tops and low cut shirts to be verboten. What is unsettling is for a school to ignore its dress code on picture day, then suddenly take to Photoshop on photos of children.
What kind of message does it send to kids when their images are Photoshopped? That they don't have control over how they look? That they can be "improved" upon by a computer?
That's why so many of us are concerned about the Photoshopping of models, isn't it? Because it tells our kids that people need to be changed to look "better"?
These days many school picture services do offer alterations -- they'll take out zits or scars. But those offers are made to parents. Parents get to sign off on them, if they're done at all. Which is how it should be for any alteration of a child's photograph -- be it scrubbing up a bug bite or pulling up a neckline.
Would you allow your kids' school to mess with their photos? How far is too far?
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Image via © mattjeacock/istock