"the empire struck back and laid me off. fuck the merc. fuck medianews. newspapers deserve to die. i left today with my at-at under my arm."

Flickr]

The trouble started, we hear, when Wintour found out that star fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier had some work in the latest issue of Interview. Demarchelier is closely associated with Vogue, and has shot numerous covers for domestic and international issues of the magazine.

Further, we hear that Demarchelier may be on an extremely lucrative exclusive contract with Vogue. So Wintour "flipped her shit" at the thought of him working for a semi-competitor. She got so upset that eventually she had to go and have a mob-like "Sit down" meeting with Glenn O'Brien, who oversees Interview for Brant Publications and is not a fan of celebrities.

The outcome of that meeting is unclear. But everyone involved better hope that Wintour cools off. Her reaction to Demarchelier's perceived betrayal was to call around to Vogue's top photographers—including Brad Pitt chronicler Steven Klein—and urge (order?) them not to shoot any photos for Interview. We hear that this isn't the first time she's gotten angry like this; she tried to tell photographers not to work for Tina Brown's ill-fated Talk magazine when it launched, too.

The upshot of her earlier attempt to keep all the good photographers for herself? They all got to jack up their own prices, which may have played a role in Demarchelier getting such a lucrative contract from Vogue in the first place.

Such a cut-throat fashion photography world. Or so we hear! If you have anything to add, email us.

"The twenty-four hundred year old Temple of Poseidon lies in the foreground, also visible to sailors on the Aegean Sea. In this well-planned single exposure, a telescopic lens makes the Moon loom large, but even without optical aid casual skygazers often find the Full Moon looking astonishingly large when seen near the horizon. That powerful visual effect is known as the Moon Illusion." [NASA via Coudal]

[Pics via Something Awful, Fark, and Flickr.]

Update: here's Alice__K's theory from the comments: "My guess is that the original un-Photoshopped photo went to separate retouchers, one for print and one for web, probably because of a timing issue. The person who retouched the left photo kept the mole, changed the jawline, and made the colors warmer and more saturated. The person who retouched the photo on the right erased the mole, left the jaw alone, and used daylight colors."

[ArabAquarius via Coudal]

The general reaction to the boxer's initial denials were roughly the same as the reaction to R. Kelly's legal team's theory that it wasn't really him in the sex video: quiet scoffing. In reality, experts concluded after much examination that they were faked by a stripper trying to blackmail him. So, on behalf of the media, we (as ridiculous as that sounds) have to apologize to him. Sorry!

And while many people have laughed off the incident as free publicity for Oscar, the truth is that things like this never really go away. Many more people will have heard about the initial photo scandal than will hear about its debunking. It will now make its way to Snopes.com, along with all the other persistent urban legends that get passed down despite the fact that they're false. Never forget:

[omgowned]

[NYT]

[File Magazine via BoingBoing]

[PRINT via Kottke]

The New Travel Weekly, a small lifestyle magazine, ran photos of sultry models in their underwear amid the debris in an issue that hit the stands on Monday - the first of three days of national mourning.

Ha, whoa! Now we've seen some bad judgment, but that is some bad judgment. All the magazine's top editors have been fired, and the publication has been temporarily shuttered for "rectification." In a formal statement we agree with for once, the Chinese government said the photos constituted an "extremely evil social influence."

You still don't see 9/11 porn.

[News24]

Any photograph used in a magazine, a billboard, an album cover, whatever - can only be presumed to be a photo-based illustration. The issue, which Dove's well-intentioned campaign addressed, is the effect these illustrations have on the psyche, self-esteem, and well-being of women (in particular) not to mention the unrealistic view men might have of women. It brings to mind the shock the eminent Victorian art critic John Ruskin experienced upon discovering his wife's pubic hair, after which he was unable to consummate the marriage. Divorce followed shortly.

The hypocrisy that Dove is now being accused of is understandable but perhaps not of a Spitzerian magnitude. However, it is compounded by the fact that the product their ads were pushing were skin firming, cellulite reducing creams. Oh the double standards! So perhaps we should agree that we are living in both the digital age and the age of hypocrisy.

[via Kottke]

[pics via NYT. PETA is mostly okay!]

Everyone employed by Dove "declined to elaborate on what the "color correction entailed," and declined to respond by deadline to phone calls or e-mails to a report from a person familiar with the matter that Mr. Dangin had admitted specifically to removing veins from the images of the women," reports Ad Age. Meanwhile, the New Yorker says that the only inaccurate thing in its story is that it said Dangin retouched photos of women in "undergarments," while in fact he retouched women in nude photos—which would mean he worked on Dove's celebrate-your-natural-body Pro-Age ads, shot by Annie Leibovitz.

It's apparent that the company is hoping that the whole thing will blow over with no lasting effects. And it surely may. But with the New Yorker standing firm, it's hard to take Dove at face value. Here are two of the ads in question:

Statement from Dove about The New Yorker Article

Dove's mission is to make more women feel beautiful every day by widening the definition of beauty and inspiring them to take great care of themselves. Dove strives to portray women by accurately depicting their shape, size, skin color and age.

The "real women" ad referenced in recent media coverage was created and produced entirely by Ogilvy, the Dove brand's advertising agency, from start to finish and the women's bodies were not digitally altered.

Pascal Dangin worked with photographer Annie Leibovitz (Ogilvy has never employed Mr. Dangin on the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty), who did the photography for the launch of the Dove ProAge campaign, a new campaign within the Campaign for Real Beauty. There was an understanding between Dove and Ms. Leibovitz that the photos would not be retouched - the only actions taken were the removal of dust from the film and minor color correction.

"Let's be perfectly clear - Pascal does all kinds of work - but he is primarily a printer - and only does retouching when asked to. The idea for Dove was very clear at the beginning. There was to be NO retouching and there was not," confirmed Annie Leibovitz, commenting on the ProAge campaign.

Mr. Dangin responded, "The recent article published by The New Yorker incorrectly implies that I retouched the images in connection with the Dove "real women" ad. I only worked on the Dove ProAge campaign taken by Annie Leibovitz and was directed only to remove dust and do color correction - both the integrity of the photographs and the women's natural beauty were maintained."

###

"It is known that everybody does it, but they protest," Dangin said recently. "The people who complain about retouching are the first to say, 'Get this thing off my arm.' " I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual "real women" in their undergarments. It turned out that it was a Dangin job. "Do you know how much retouching was on that?" he asked. "But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive."

Why, that would make Dove a bunch of rank hypocrites! A spokeswoman for Dove's ad agency tells Ad Age that "We are unsure right now what he did," and adds:

"There was no retouching of the women," she said. "If there was a hair that was up in the air, that might have been the kind of retouching that was done. But until I know what he actually worked on, I can't comment on it."

If only for the excessive amount of self-righteousness that accompanied the PR effort surrounding this ad campaign, let's sincerely hope these retouching allegations are true.

The Daily News' Richard Huff points out that ratings for the previous episode, which aired before the photo controversy broke, were also down:

Compared to the first original show of the year, which aired in January, viewership for Sunday's show was down 33%.

That suggests the hubbub over series star Miley Cyrus' questionable photos in Vanity Fair neither helped nor hurt with viewership. Rather, "Hannah" was on a decline before the photo dustup.

Disney CEO Bob Iger has the obligatory quote about how the Miley "franchise" is "incredibly robust." But Huff suggest that she could already be on an inevitable downward slide, at least among young fans. Which would certainly cause her advisers to tell her to grow up, quick.

Experience shows that kid franchises such as "Hannah" that hit the rare white-hot phase are good for roughly 18 months, then start to fade.

"Hannah Montana" had been the top-rated show with young viewers the past two seasons, but because of the slow rollout this year, the heat has moved to the "Wizards of Waverly Place," starring Selena Gomez (who has appeared on "Hannah"), which now holds the slot as Disney's top show.

• Andrea Peyser: It was Billy Ray Cyrus' fault, the unskilled, no good father.
• Bonnie Fuller: These Miley pictures were comparable to the statutory rape and impregnation of teenagers by a polygamist cult. That means bad.
• Rosie O'Donnell: These pictures were beautiful. Plus Annie Liebovitz is a scary photographer who intimidates me. Get off her back, bitches.
• Tila Tequila: OMG she is so sexy! I was like that at 15, except more of a whore.
• Assorted Random Celebrities: Uh, you know, different people do different stuff, and stuff. I wouldn't want to judge a fellow vapid celebrity.
• Germaine Greer: All teenagers are sluts, in reality, and Miley is no different. Leibovitz is cynical, for good reason. "It is the tragedy of Cyrus's life that she has nothing to sell but herself and she is fast approaching her sell-by date. From this time forward her price can only go down."
• Michael Roberts: Stupid Americans can't appreciate beautiful little girls.
• Stephen Colbert: Oh no! (sarcastically)
• Gawker: Annie Leibovitz, you cur! [With an alternate opinion from Ryan Tate: This is nothing new]
• Annie Leibovitz: What? I thought it was pretty.

[pic via Vanity Fair]

In one of her random HuffPo rants (reminiscent of her earlier fretting over the treatment of Britney Spears) Fuller exercises her trademark lack of self-awareness by not only piously standing up as the voice of morality (any asshole can do that), but by actually conflating a photo spread with an epidemic of actual statutory rape. The kind that happened in the real world.

I'm not sure that it is all that different. In both cases 15-year-olds, who are well under the age of consent, are being exploited because they are viewed as sexually attractive. And in both cases, their parents are allowing it to happen.

Miley may not have been forced to have sex with a creepy old man but she is being put out on display like a modern day Lolita and you can bet a lot of creepy old men will be eyeballing her bare shoulders and back and having nasty thoughts about her other parts that appear to be bare. Yuck!

She seems to be having trouble distinguishing between real stuff and media celebrity stuff, so allow us to help. Bonnie, just imagine a straight line, representing the spectrum of disgusting things in the world, from "Very disgusting" on one end to "Just amusingly disgusting" on the other. At the far end, towards "Very," is polygamy mixed with statutory rape. Closer to the middle are things like glossy photo shoots for Miley Cyrus (imagine that on the "Somewhat disgusting but mainly boring" branch), and Star magazine's existence. Then, closer the "Amusing" side, you'll find things like Gawker (I like to think), candy cigarettes, and ultimate fighting.

Yuck!

"I'm European. I come from London, I lived in Paris, and I just find it extraordinary that this has been blown up like this," he told WWD...

"The whole kiddie porn prurient angle seems to be worryingly sour grapes from other magazines that didn't get a picture like this...teenagers can be seen on TV and in the cinema in the most prurient ways, and then a photograph which is for all intents and purposes innocent is blown out of portion and condemned as some ridiculous apotheosis. It's a joke to me. But it's not a joke because I don't find it funny. I find it offensive. I'm deemed as being party to some kind of subversive picture of this girl, that she was cajoled. That we literally manhandled her into stripping is completely not true."

We bestow a cookie upon Mr. Roberts for his valiant effort not to "literally manhandle" Miley Cyrus into stripping. Make that the apotheosis of a cookie.

"This is a girl caught up in a gigantic enterprise where many people's fortunes are riding on her future. If it was fine then, I don't see why suddenly it's not fine."

Roberts suggested one rationale for the change of heart: "Maybe Vanity Fair is a far too sophisticated media outlet for her. Maybe she's better off in those teen magazines. We don't do cheesy teen pictures. We do chic pictures and pictures that are beautiful portraits by probably the leading portrait photographer of our age."

Well then. America stands corrected.

[Bonus great Roberts quote from last year: 'The thing about Vanity Fair is that they always want the stars naked,' he says. 'But I'm trying to persuade them to put the clothes on.' Ha. For more on Roberts' general bitchiness, see here]

We're hardly the type to play scolds for risque media attention-getting stunts. But there is such a thing as a bright line that you simply don't cross. Consider this quote in the NYT from a Vanity Fair spokesperson:

"Miley's parents and/or minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley."

Is that so? Here's a radical notion: stop bullshitting us. Everybody recognizes sex when they see it. Humans are hardwired for it, and media outlets are experts at pushing our buttons in that particular arena. Does anyone—at Vanity Fair, among its readers, or even Annie Leibovitz herself—believe that the master photographer didn't give any thought to sexing up the 15 year-old pop star in those photos? That the bedsheet was totally innocuous?

Another radical notion: the media and its proxies bear some responsibility for what is published. There are rare times when it falls to the photographer, or the publisher, to save someone from their own bad judgment. We live in a highly sexualized culture as it is; the least we can do is keep kids out of its spotlight until they're of age. Cyrus and her parents are either poor judges of PR, or were ignorant as to how the shoot would end up looking. Either way, VF and Leibovitz owed them the courtesy of not letting this happen in the first place.

Yes, a free press extends into the celebrity arena, and yes, we're all for openness in reporting, obviously. But Leibovitz, who has earned over the course of her career the right to call the shots on the photos that fill our country's glossiest magazine pages, has lost her perspective. It's a matter of very simple decency, and one doesn't have to be a prude, or a conservative, or even someone frustrated with the sheer vapid nature of these things, to steer clear of sexualizing children for the sake of selling more magazines.

Vanity Fair, sadly, would probably never deign to turn down a photo spread like this. But Leibovitz should know better. As technically skilled as she is (and there is no denying that), she has become primarily a machine for generating ginned-up controversy. And not always controversy that is provocative in the service of a larger ideal, or that seeks to shock us out of old and tired conventions. Just controversy, set up artificially, for the sake of itself.

A parallel to the current uproar is the outrage that ensued over Leibovitz's recent Vogue cover featuring Lebron James in a King Kong-like pose, holding supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Leave aside, for a moment, the argument over whether she was consciously using the shot to position the basketball star as King Kong redux. What's certain is that she's far too experienced not to recognize the images such a photo would call to mind, and the controversy that would ensue. And did her work accomplish anything? Was it a great stride towards racial equality in the elite fashion media? No, it was essentially a "Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Which is what Leibovitz excels at. And which is what she and Vanity Fair were going for with the Miley Cyrus shoot.

Leibovitz just released this statement:

"I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," she said in a statement. "Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together, and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it.

"The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."

Debatable. But even if such a photo would be considered beautiful hanging on the wall of her parents' den, a huge photo spread in Vanity Fair is quite a different story, and requires a bit more careful thought. Somebody has to be the adult. Furthermore, the celeb-shocker bit is no longer shocking. It's just wearying. Leibovitz is now firmly entrenched in the establishment, and it's time for some new blood to rush in. It is possible to say something interesting and useful about the celebrity machine. We believe!

We don't want to railroad Annie Leibovitz out of her profession based on one mistake. We just want some new ideas—for the sake of everyone. It's a safe bet that she doesn't want to be remembered as a child-exploiting one trick pony, either.

[pics via Vanity Fair]

Bert Colima

Bobby Pacho

Carmen Barth

Jack Holtz

Jimmy McLarnin

Joe Dundee (right)

Johnny Lamar

Newsboy Brown and actor Tom Mix

Primo Carnera

Tommy O'Brien