American Ballet Theatre's Misty Copeland posted a photo on her Instagram account last week by New York based photographer Gregg Delman. The photo is from his new book called, sensibly, Misty Copeland by Gregg Delman. Who would have imagined the storm it whipped up.
After initial comments – “Gorgeous”; “Perfection”; “Just incredible” – a certain @nerdsrkewl commented, “What in the world… Is your mid section photo shopped???” Then the ball just kept rolling: “Are you too thin my love?”, “Realllly looks photoshopped”, “This looks photoshopped, Misty is not this scrawny!” and “This photo does not reflect recent images of Misty. Photoshopped too much. Are we still celebrating Misty as a fabulous ballerina or just another celeb on a publicity photo shoot?!” are just a handful of the many comments the post received, criticising her, as a role-model, for misleading her fans.
Copeland responded by posting the original and the photoshopped version, with the comment,
I'm so proud of this wonderful book that @greggdelmanphoto made. The positive body image that is shown throughout is a healthy one and what I stand for. The image on the left was photoshopped to smooth out my leotard. No altering was done to my body. I'm happy and proud of my body and would never participate in changing it.
It calmed the storm a little… but not much:
“Idk, your legs look more muscular on the other. I think they did more than just your leo, but you're still beautiful either way”.
“The thighs very much look alters and the side of your back also why would they mess with perfection and that's what God made in each of us”.
and
“If you didn't say anything, no one would care…but you make a post saying you didn't have anything altered when you clearly did, smh.. they stretched your head, son”.
Of course, the righthand photo is a snap of a snap; the bottom part of the photo is enlarged because of the angle, and the head stretches away into the distance. But they kept on raving anyway, often tagging on a, “Love you always Misty!!” at the end.
One wrote,
“The pic on the right is perfection. The picture on the left is highly altered. Skin tone smoothed out, wrinkles removed, face elongated, lighting corrected. But I LOVE the pic on the right. Pure Misty and pure perfection”.
As any photographer can see by looking at the back wall, the photo on the right hasn't received any white balancing, it's all much darker from the floor to her skin. And this isn't meant to be documentary reportage but art photography, so the whole picture may have been smoothed out a little to provide a softer, more romantic look. Extreme smoothing out of the leotard was unnecessary for my taste, and widening the skirting-board (or baseboard) I wouldn't have thought really needed, but these are the changes, not the line of Copeland's stomach!
Copeland is no stranger to discussions about her weight and body form, and she has gone out of her way to explain these problems and differences in many interviews.
A couple of years ago, she confessed to Self magazine that when she was 21, ABT directors told her:
“Your body has changed. The lines you're creating don't look the way they used to. We'd like to see you lengthen.” That, of course, was just a polite, safe way of saying, “You need to lose weight.”
In fact, it was a period when she was binge-eating. That changed.
I started thinking about food not as solace but as the fuel that gave me the energy and strength I needed to dance—and to live. I paid attention to how my meals made me feel physically, started eating more vegetables and fish and gave up red meat and poultry. I still ate sweets occasionally because I love them—especially cupcakes and banana pudding—but now just one serving was plenty.
Just in July of this year, she told New York Magazine's The Cut that,
I've struggled with body-image issues and finding a way to fit in and create a new path for the typical body type of a ballerina. I've had so many issues throughout my career finding the right support — even in something like finding leotards to fit a larger butt.
But she shares a memory from 2012:
I remember walking out of rehearsal in jeans and sandals to get my hair done for the premiere. When I turned onto the sidewalk, I saw it: a huge billboard on the front of the Metropolitan Opera House with my picture on it. I was in profile, wearing a red leotard, with my chest and back arched so you could see my full, feminine breasts and my round butt. It was everything that people don't expect in a ballerina. I stood completely still for five minutes, just crying. It was beauty. It was power. It was a woman. It was me.
END
Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.
His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.
“I wish I’d sold out when people still wanted to buy what I had to sell.” Attributed to Joan Jett. Fame is a flash in the pan and it’s Misty Copeland’s business how she capitalizes on it. I can’t imagine why anyone would be upset about it.
So it’s basically an optical illusion?