I have always loved Ricki-Lee Coulter. From the first time I saw her perform on Australian Idol I thought she was incredibly talented, sassy and likeable. I love that she has always spoken so confidently of her curvaceous body, displaying a fantastic sense of positive body image. Despite reporting that ’industry’ people have told her she should slim down, Ricki-Lee has refused to do so, stating she feels very comfortable the way she is. Bravo!
Ricki-Lee has appeared in this weeks Woman’s Day Magazine in a swimsuit shoot. Here she is looking incredibly beautiful.
This is not the first time Ricki-Lee has been shot in swimwear or even lingerie, so that is really nothing new to us. What is ‘new’ about these photo’s is that they are supposedly unretouched in response to the recent Marie Claire cover of Jennifer Hawkins. While I think its fantastic that cover continues to promote discussion and responses about excessive retouching practices in women’s magazines, I must admit to having some niggly concerns about this shoot.
My first concern is related to the title of the story –
Grrrr. Once again we have this ludicrous sentiment being pushed about by the media that some women are supposedly more ‘real’ than others for no other reason than their size. It’s so offensive and genuinely stupid, serving no reason other than to pit women against one another, get them to continue to compare their bodies and be each others worst enemy. As I state here, I believe all women are real women, regardless of their shape or size. Your ‘realness’ is not determined by the size of jeans you wear. Fail Woman’s Day. Particularly bad fail when Jennifer Hawkins regularly appears in your magazine too. I hope someone has a nice explanation regarding this cheap shot you have taken at her.
My second niggle is about the photo’s themselves. As I have already mentioned, I think Ricki-Lee looks amazing in this shoot – totally gorgeous. But unretouched? I’m not so sure about that. In my work I see alot of photo’s that are both entirely natural and those that have had the Photoshop wand waved over them. To my eye these photo’s do appear retouched, chiefly due to the fact that Ricki-Lee’s skin has that regular magazine shoot ‘gloss’ and uniformity that is now so the norm in fashion spreads. Her skin on her stomach looks the same as on her legs, as on her face. This is simply not the way a person’s skin appears in real life.
The other skin issue with these photo’s is that on Ricki-Lee’s body there are no creases, lines, or the usual dimpling that women have. This is particularly noticeable in the photo where she is lying down. I do not know of any woman who has a shape like Ricki-Lee’s where this would not be seen in a position where their thighs are pressed into the floor. I don’t say this because I think it’s bad – not at all! Dimply thighs and cellulite is a natural and normal part of most women’s bodies. It has only been made ‘bad’ by cellulite cream marketers and of course magazines who consistently airbrush it away.
I wish it to be clearly known that if I am wrong about these photo’s and they have not been digitally altered in any way, I will eat humble pie and duly apologise. I have emailed Woman’s Day asking the question and if I get a response I will let you all know. If they haven’t been retouched and someone can prove it to me, despite not liking the story title, I will shout praise for Woman’s Day as another magazine taking a step to show us more realistic images of women on their pages. I will also take my hat off to Ricki-Lee, like Jennifer, for having the courage to appear a la naturel. In this day and age where Photoshop so often reigns supreme – I think that’s a great thing. If the photo’s have however been passed off as unretouched, when they have actually been altered, that, in my eye, will quite simply be the biggest magazine fail I have seen in a very long time. In fact, probably ever.
Love your thoughts Beautiful You readers on both the story title and the photo’s. Do you think in the wake of the Marie Claire controversy it’s justified, or are you over all this talk of what is a ‘real’ woman and what isn’t? And the photo’s? Do you think I’ve lost my mind and positivity and am picking things apart too much, or do they appear a little too ‘perfected’ to you too?
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for your thoughts on this Julie. Ricki-Lee is gorgeous and it's nice to once again see someone like her flaunted among magazine pages and presented as another representation of beauty. But I agree this overused term "real woman" is becoming grating. I admit to being guilty of it myself at VenusVision but because of people like you, I've realized how ignorant and insensitive the term is when it implies anything but every woman.
In addition to the comments you made about this particular shoot, what irritates me is that Woman's Day, like so many other women's magazines, will run a spread like this, tooting their own horn for featuring a "real woman" and then have the rest of their pages filled with diets and ads for cosmetic surgery. Seems to me when they feature people like Ricki-Lee (who, let's face it, is still hardly representative of the average-sized woman) they are simply paying lip-service to the body diversity movement.
Julie, You are not engaging with the genuine concerns put forward by women about this Marie Claire shoot and now, the Rikki Lee shoot.
You said:
"Once again we have this ludicrous sentiment being pushed about by the media that some women are supposedly more 'real' than others for no other reason than their size."
I think that if you really wanted to engage with women's concern, you would think about what people are meaning when they talk about "real." It's not like they're all stupid and you're incredibly smart Julie, but rather than engaging with the arguments, you wish to characterise us critics as judgemental, against thin women, or even against Jennifer Hawkins herself.
Women have had enough of being lied to repeatedly by magazines and then this pathetic token gesture is supposed to be a step in the right direction. It's not a step in right direction at all, Marie Claire and it seems, Butterfly, are not even walking on the same path.
Julie, what they mean when they say that Jennifer Hawkins isn't "real" is not that she is a cartoon figure, but that she does not even come close to what most Australian women look like, which is why she is also known as "Miss Universe." Replace the word "real" with the words "most Australian women" when you read these comments and respond accordingly. Yes, Jennifer Hawkins is "real" but she most certainly isn't a representation of most Australian women who have dimples, creases and scars galore and who come in a variety of different shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities.
Butterfly compromise their message when they collaborate with products and businesses that undermine their work.
Hi Kelly – Thanks for your comment. Please be reassured I do not consider myself to be incredibly smart and other people stupid. I just don't think of myself or others that way.
I just don't like it when people criticize others based solely on their size – no matter what the reason. While I fully appreciate in the comment you have made here, that you have not personally criticized Jennifer Hawkins, many other people have.
I do appreciate what you are saying about the need to change wording when we talk about such things. There is nothing more that I would like to see than a move away from the word 'real' when talking about such things, as it is offensive. It of course used to be used to describe women who could not have children or chose not to, ie. you weren't a 'real' woman unless you were a Mother. Such a sentiment today I would hope to be seen as outrageous by any person, and it's my hope that it also be discontinued to be used in these instances.
I'm not going to get into details, but yes, I looked at the images in the magazine and thought they were retouched on the face and at various points on the body in all photos. I can't understand why magazines will make a big deal about not retouching a photo and then not employ top notch people to make sure that the work isn't obvious to a trained eye.
Wasn't the wording in the article about Coulter's conditions to do the shoot something like "Only if they agreed not to retouch my body or my shape"? Leaves a lot of potential areas of work unmentioned…
Re: skin tone – Ricki-Lee seems to use fake tan for press appearances so that is how she can have the same all over skin tone, and a bit of body makeup helps as well. Tanning lotion covers stretch marks and scars and lessens the appearance of skin dimpling…hence the reason why celebs all use it!
And phooey on the 'Real' woman thing as well. Everyone is trying to redefine 'real' for their own purpose. Please, check the dictionary. This relentless misappropriation of language by the media (real, curvy, normal, average) to euphemise the shape of women's bodies is getting out of control.
I met Ricki-Lee in person in a past job. Even away from the cameras I can say that she was refreshingly honest and comfortable in her own skin.
I know this article is 6 months old now so I'm pretty late to the party, so to speak, but I thought I would Post my thoughts on the article.
First up, I definitely agree that cellulite is a "normal and natural part of most women's bodies". However, it is still unattractive. In this purely superficial sense, it is indeed "bad". This is why magazines airbrush it out and why cellulite cream exists.
Second, I was greatly upset about the comments about airbrushing. Basically, your argument amounts to "There is no way she looks this good so these pictures must be airbrushed". You say "Her skin is too uniform" and "she doesn't have enough wrinkles". On what basis can we say that her skin is too uniform or that it isn't wrinkly enough? According to you, it is that women in real life don't look like this. Isn't this the kind of thing you lamented in the previous paragraph, about women comparing their bodies and being pitted against each other? This is the main reason I was upset.
Well, maybe she just does look that good (after more conventional beauty tricks, like make-up, lighting etc.). The only way to tell is to compare these shots against other definitively unairbrushed shots like candids or red carpet shots.
The only smoking gun when it comes to air brushing is inconsistencies with other photos of the same person, and as far as Ricki-Lee goes these photos pass the test.
Granted, there are very few other photos to compare to and these photos are just too small for a decent comparison to be made, but we have to work with the tools we have.
The other thing I wanted to say is that Ricki-Lee is way too attractive to be considered representative of most Australian women.
Anonymous – Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment. I appreciate your viewpoint but you will never get me to agree that any part of a person's body is unnatractive and that includes cellulite. It's a natural part of most women's bodies and shouldn't be seen as something to be ashamed of, airbrushed away or slathered with a useless cream.
OMIGOD. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this yet.
YOU MISSED THE POINT OF THE ARTICLE, JULIE.
that article called "hey girls, here's what a real woman looks like!" was NOT saying that one body type is perfect, they were saying that PHOTOSHOPPING PICTURES FOR ADS IS WRONG. By saying that she was "real", they were NOT saying that her body type is better than everyone else's. They were saying that she does not show a perfect, unachievable figure that so many ads portray, because she was NOT photoshopped.
SERIOUSLY?? HOW DID YOU MISS THAT??
Hi Anonymous – While I appreciate you can choose to interpret the Woman's Day article in any way you like I have to disagree that I have missed the point of the article. This story in Woman's Day was released within a week of the unphotoshopped cover of Jennifer Hawkins on Marie Claire who received widespread criticism that she was not a 'real' enough woman due to her thin body shape and being a model.
The headline in the Woman's Day article is a pointed jab at Jennifer Hawkins and Marie Claire, with them attempting to claim that Ricki-Lee is a more real woman because of her larger size. The fact that they claim the photo's of Ricki-Lee are not retouched is not the core of the story – because Marie Claire trumped them there. It's about them attempting to ride the wave of media push that was criticising Jennifer she was not a real enough woman.
On another note I should mention that Woman's Day never did respond to my questioning of them about whether these images were indeed not retouched, which is a shame. I would have liked to have known either way.
I came across this page while doing a search on "Ricki Lee-coulter". I really like her but why I was looking is because I just saw another magazine (I can't ermember which one) in Woolies which showed her drop another two sizes to a size 10/12. Now, she looks amazing but doesn't that take away all the talk about her being size 14 and proud of it?? she is also launching her branch of "suck me in" (not the correct name!) underwear… does anyone else see a bit of irony here?
Anonymous – November 9, 2010 – the latest irony is that Ricki-Lee is splashed all over the media touting her 20+kg weight loss… I applaud her for having a good fitness regime and being healthy… but I can’t help but ponder her ‘size 14 and proud of it’ stance, and now her ‘I’ve never been happier’ stance about her new body. Strikes me as someone who is looking for happiness in the wrong place.