Beauty Mark: Photoshop Disclaimers And The Beauty Industry

What would happen to the beauty industry if ads containing too much image altering provided a disclaimer? Legislators in Britain and France are about to find out. Jo Swinson, a British member of Parliment, and Valerie Boyer, a lawmaker from the French U.M.P. party, have both introduced legislation to either ban altered images in advertising altogether or make them come with a rating system, warning viewers just how edited an image might be. Advertising experts agree that some Photoshop work is “necessary” in creating a visually appealing ad but others, mostly in the beauty business, think it’s a retouched world and we just live in it.
But would this fly in the US? We’re inundated with image after image of almost entirely fake faces and bodies – highlighting, low lighting, shading, shrinking, making things bigger, making things smaller, erasing zits, getting rid of errant hairs, etc. (Dove made a really great video showcasing how much editing goes into the images we see.) We see this so often that I think we’re beginning to forget what real bodies look like with real lumps and bumps and humps (the good ones and the bad ones). I wouldn’t mind seeing a disclaimer on some of these ads, like this Madonna one – WARNING: We Photoshopped the eff out of this. This woman is over 50.
So, should the US implement something like this?