Celebrity Photoshopping
August 23rd, 2007
I’m not really sure what to think of Planet Hiltron. It’s a site that photoshops celebrities to make them look fatter, older, weirder, more retro, and unfortunate in general. Is it offensive or entertaining?
I do have to say that the quality of the photoshopping is kind of impressive at times. I mean, they actually made Johnny Depp look like Ron Jeremy. Who knew?
Posted by mo pie
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I found it rather barfworthy, as it mostly seemed to consist of, ‘here is (X celebrity)… But FAT. OH, THE HILARITY AND WACKY ZANINESS’.
I liked Larry King as a grandma, and the face of Ellen DeGeneres ‘shopped onto Eva Gabor was kind of neat, but as Sanctimonious Whelp mentioned, most of it is pretty one-note. And a flat note, at that.
You know, I went to that site thinking it was going to be like this damn page, where the photoshopping is pretty clearly done out of hostility towards women celebrities. But I
don’t think it’s quite the same thing at Planet Hiltron. I guess if you just look at the first page you might think it was just all “(X celebrity)… but fat.” But if you look through the rest of the site you’ll see that most of the photos really aren’t about making people look fat. And I don’t get the impression that HA HA THEY’RE FAT is the central joke in any of these photos. I think the joke is a little more interesting than that. And I love the school photos.
I actually like the yearbook photos they made up. Kind of like a peek at what these people would end up like if they hadn’t become rich and famous. And the Nicole Richie baby made me snort my Smart Start through my nose. But I just don’t see the point of the fat pics. The fat people’s bodies that are used are perfectly fine…I mean, they’re all clean, well-dressed. There’s nothing sloppy or shocking about them, so that means we’re supposed to be amused solely by the fact that they’re fat. And that just doesn’t work for me.
The fat people’s bodies that are used are perfectly fine…I mean, they’re all clean, well-dressed. There’s nothing sloppy or shocking about them.
Actually, that’s why I think fat is just sort of incidental to the bigger joke of these pictures—these photos make celebs look ordinary, and fat is just one aspect of that ordinariness. It’s not like those Impact Lab photos* where you’re supposed to gawk at the rolls of flab and the double chins. You can tell that the bodies here are definitely real, and I don’t think there’s any shock value intended, at least not in the usual “ew, fatty” sense.
(Which isn’t to say that this site doesn’t go for the cheap fat joke sometimes, as evidenced by the Victoria Beckham photo.)
*I linked to another set of photos in a previous post in this thread, but I guess the post is still held up in moderation because it contains too many links.
Actually, the photo-shopped Nicole and Paris look a hell of a lot healthier and cuter than the emancipated real-life versions.
I agree with Wendy- in most cases, the fatness has the same shock value as the frumpy hair and saggy boobs- it gives the impression of what these people might be like if they didn’t have teams of stylists and trainers etc. working on every aspect of their image, and if they didn’t have legions of gawkers noticing every aspect of their image.
There’s one of Madonna that’s particularly good, ’cause she just looks like a midwestern mom with crinkly skin, flat hair, and mostly thin with a bit of a tummy. Planet Hiltron didn’t just choose to make her fat because Ha! she’s skinny in RL! Ha! The body type they chose really looks to me like an alternate universe Madonna, and she looks like a lot of women I know in the midwest.
I’m strangely fascinated by the alternate universe. . .
I completely agree with Dancinghawk. I think the fat Paris and Nicole actually look like fun, cute girls!
I’m glad that everyone isn’t offended by the site, I thought it was a guilty pleasure of mine!! I feel much better now!!! *g*
Yeah, I think you guys put your finger on it. It’s like alternative universe celebrities. We validate your guilty pleasure, mshell!
Yeah, I’m with Wendy and Swellanor on this. I was thinking the same thing as Swellanor — that it was almost a “what if they lived down the street from me and had a bazillion things to do besides work out, eat great food, and couldn’t afford to have work done. They’d be JUST LIKE US.”
We’re looking at people who, basically, are professionals at looking good. It’s their full time job. And if they weren’t doing that, they’d be a systems analyst at a software firm, and look like Ron Jeremy.
I thought the altered picture of Jennifer Aniston was cute.
Wow. That place is so wild.
For all that I’m sure most of the people there see it just as Sanctimonious Whelp describes it, I personally see some rather subversive and interesting things going on. Like, the same concept used for the powers of good could be /awesome/.
1. What a great education on the powers of Photoshop. So many of those ‘Shop-jobs were pretty convincing. If an amateur with too much time on his or her hands can do that, consider what a professional with top-of-the-line equipment can do.
2. A lot of the pictures of celebrities “fattened” made me think of people I know, or people I have known. I mean, the Jennifer Aniston picture looked like the mom of one of my grade school friends. Which, in a culture which says a) celebrities are vastly different and superior to you so b) you don’t need to respect things like their privacy, because they aren’t “real” people anyway, is kind of a big deal.
I mean, call me a dingus, but it kind of shook up my thinking, to see Jennifer Aniston look like someone I could sit across a chipped formica table with and share some coffee.
3. Some of the pictures reminded me that there’s a reason why even fat celebrities do not look like me and my friends do, and that’s the fleets of hair stylists, makeup artists and stylists whose job it is to make the celebrity look beautiful, which is of course the celebrity’s job.
It’s a good reminder that if my job didn’t mean changing diapers and reading the same book 50 times a day and keeping my temper vaguely in check when a child smears yogurt all over my chair, but instead was only about “looking good,” I bet I could look damn fantastic too.
Sadly, I’m pretty sure it’s more likely about putting those “skinny bitches” in their place by subjecting them to the “ultimate torment” of being “fat-ified” (Holy Scare Quotes, Batman!). It’s too bad – all that potential, and they just wanna go, “Ha ha ha! Now Famous Actress looks FAT!”
Whoa. Okay, so I wrote most of that late last night, before I was interrupted by a scared kid, and there was just the one comment then. I should have gone and looked at the new comments before posting, but didn’t want to get interrupted again.
Now I see I’m mostly just echoing what others have said. Whups.
After looking at the pictures, this site seems kinda cool. If nothing else, it’s an education about the Hollywood image machine and how it manipulates celebrities’ images and also our reactions.
I had a similar reaction to the picture of an altered Keira Knightley that Thorn had with Jennifer Anniston’s pic.
I think it’s extremely classist – oooh, look how TERRIBLE regular people look in their stupid ugly clothes!! Imagine how hideous Jessica Simpson would be with a c.1990 spiral perm! It feels mean-spirited to me.
I think that the statement being made at Planet Hiltron is not how fat and ugly ordinary people look, but how extremely groomed and extraordinarily skinny the celebs are. They are the one who look like aliens at times. The website is also just plain funny!
I think the website PlanetHiltron is really funny! It’s satire, hello?! The celebs ARE the freaks in real life!
The Ann Coulter picture made me burst out laughing. The Fingernails….they are perfect.
As for the rest of the site, it seems less about Fat=disgusting and more like “what would celebs look like if they were just us”.
This has got to be the worst one ever. Seriously, 50 poorly photoshopped celebrities made “fat” by someone who has no understanding of anatomy.
The 2 worst things:
1.Only 7 or so are males.
2. Some of these “people” wouldn’t even be “plus”, let alone “FAT”.
http://www.celebuzz.com/celebs-what-if-they-fat-g153311/