Justice

Why These 'Visual Effects' on Cara Delevingne Were Unnecessary and Potentially Harmful

April 21st 2017

Cara Delevingne is a former model, meaning her career depended on her maintaining fashion industry standards of "beauty" and fitting into sample sizes (which are typically a size 0).

But special effects footage from her role in the movie "Suicide Squad," unearthed this week, suggest that — despite her already thin frame — her body was given a digital slimming down.

FilmIsNow Movie Bloopers & Extras posted behind-the-scenes footage of some of the visual effects from "Suicide Squad."

The video went up on YouTube on Monday but it wasn't until Thursday that film sites and blogs began to pick up on what appears to be digital retouching on Delevingne's waist and thighs, making her appear slimmer than she already is.

IndieWire posted a GIF on Thursday of the before and after:

Teen Vogue summed it up in a tweet:

It unfortunately isn't a surprise to see yet another photoshopped image of an already slim woman, although people may not realize this happens in film, not just ads and magazines. "We were seeing hundreds of thousands spent on this, anywhere from $500 to $2,500 per shot — maybe more if there’s a lot going into the scenes," a major studio executive told Mashable in 2014 about photoshopping in movies.

This practice is harmful to girls and women.

Jean Kilbourne of the documentary "Killing Us Softly" about the objectification of women in the media, spoke at Harvard's School of Public Health in 2015 about the media's "toxic effect" on body image. "Women and girls compare themselves to these images every day," she explained. "And failure to live up to them is inevitable because they are based on a flawlessness that doesn’t exist."

Ralph Lauren photoshop failRalph Lauren/Photoshop Disasters/CBS News - cbsnews.com

The Huffington Post reported in 2014 that "three of the most common mental-health problems among girls (eating disorders, depression or depressed mood/self-esteem) are linked to the presentation of women in the media." They further report, "seventy eight percent of 17-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies."

While these women may know that magazine ads are photoshopped, they may not realize it doesn't stop there.

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