Justice

Keira Knightley: Women's Bodies Are a Battleground and Photography is Partly to Blame

November 7th 2014

20 million women and 10 million men will suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some juncture in their lives, and yet we often turn a blind eye to this serious medical condition. In fact, many of our day-to-day actions and attitudes feed into the eating disorder-mentality, without us realizing the triggers. Recently, we wrote a piece about eating disorders here.

We are well-aware of how the media portrays the "perfect woman" as underweight and over-stylized. And yet, despite an occasional fuss over it, little has changed. Businesses are, at their very core, fueled by consumers, and despite our collective disapproval of this whittled away image of the female form, we continue to buy into it.

So what incentive do marketers have to change things? Especially considering that these ads perpetuate another ever-growing industry: the diet craze, which rakes in $20 billion annually in the U.S. Like it or not, we have accepted these messages and images as a way of life.

But one actress, Keira Knightley, is fighting back. She recently posed topless for a photoshoot and refused to allow any post production to the photos.

"I've had my body manipulated so many different times for so many different reasons, whether it's paparazzi photographers or for film posters," she said. "That [shoot] was one of the ones where I said: 'OK, I'm fine doing the topless shot so long as you don't make them any bigger or retouch.' Because it does feel important to say it really doesn't matter what shape you are."

Knightley has been at the center of some of entertainment's more dubious Photoshops, most notably how her chest was notably enlarged on the movie posters for King Arthur in 2004

Watch Knigtley discuss Hollywood's double standards here:

We also recently reported that women in Hollywood see their compensation increase until age 34, while men see the pay increase until age 51.

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