Cara Delevingne has broken into the world of acting with roles in Anna Karenina, Paper Towns, and as Enchantress in Suicide Squad. Her career began in modeling, where she’s one of the best-known faces in fashion. This wasn’t enough for Suicide Squad, which decided to digitally alter her body to make her appear thinner.
I could show you a million pictures of naturally stunning people that have been Photoshopped into oblivion and write a million words about the fuckery this wreaks on our already far-too-body-conscious and body-shaming society. But movies used to be a medium where you couldn’t just chop inches off of people because they were, you know, moving around. With the advancements in digital effects that give us awesome gifts like Gollum, however, we also have a whole new kind of bullshit to contend with: going back and enhancing, slicing, dicing and changing real female bodies.
After a Suicide Squad behind-the-scenes effects video was released last week, the Internet was fast to notice there were significant changes made to Delevingne’s body—compare how she looks while filming vs. in post-production. When the effects on her magical costume were added, her waist was subtracted.
(image: DC/Warner Bros.)
This is just so, so, so unnecessary and wrong. What were they thinking? Cara Delevingne is in top physical condition and looks fucking gorgeous all on her own, but the choice was still made to cut/copy/paste her body.
Not only is this an intrusion, but it sends a terrible message to her fans and to the public: if Cara Delevingne isn’t good enough for Hollywood standards, what the hell does this mean for an ordinary woman? Delevingne is a supermodel with a physique many would dream of—but not, apparently, the Suicide Squad creatives.
As Revelist points out, many reactions on Twitter mirrored my own:
Suicide Squad digitally slimmed @Caradelevingne, which means there’s no hope for any of us, so pass me the cake! https://t.co/PHaE98OMkF
— Charlotte Chadwick (@CChadwickPR) April 20, 2017
@Mike_P_Williams That’s saying something when even a model’s body isn’t deemed slim enough… :(
— Hannah S. (@Han_So) April 21, 2017
What was done to Delevingne boggles the mind and enrages the soul. It also gives me another reason to forget that Suicide Squad ever existed, like the rest of the movie-going public.
Apparently, Delevingne herself is angry about the digital slimming. While she hasn’t commented directly on the reports of her alterations, she took to Twitter after the story broke and posted a pointed lyric from a new Kendrick Lamar song.
🙌🏽 ‘I’m so f**kin’ sick and tired of the photoshop’ @kendricklamar HUMBLE. #Showmesomethingnatural
— Cara Delevingne (@Caradelevingne) April 23, 2017
As a model for massive global brands like Burberry and Dolce & Gabbana, Delevingne has already likely been Photoshopped six ways from Sunday, because the insane beauty standards that our society perpetuates continue to be, well, the standard. We rarely, if ever, see a glossy magazine or advertisement without airbrushed skin, impossible curves, blindingly white teeth and vanished signs of age. Unfortunately, we’ve come to expect this bullshit from the fashion world. It’s their M.O.
Hollywood has its own batshit expectations for youth and beauty, but the use of special effects to alter the body of someone who has more than met their impossible goals is going too far. Suicide Squad and its creatives have a lot to answer for beyond their terrible film.
(via Revelist, Moviepilot, top image: screengrab)
Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
