On Friday, November 21, we met with and interviewed Martha Brooks who is in charge of advertising for the beauty company L’ORÈAL in the United States.  Walking into the building, we had little knowledge about the actually photoshopping process and how superficial advertisements really are, but coming out of her office, we had learned about the process of making women “beautiful” and what is allowed in advertisements.  Ms. Brooks told us about what it is like to be in advertising and how different companies go about advertising.  Ms Brooks gave us a different perspective from the one that we have heard before.  Unlike Libba Bray, who we interviewed before, Ms. Brooks was someone who was benefiting from society’s views on beauty, but she still didn’t agree with it.  She talked about how it is really sad that people cannot see an image of someone without comparing themselves to them. 

We had the amazing chance to see the exact process of editing a magazine advertisement.  We saw the original photo, a flower, and the different stages until it was “magazine ready.”  As the image evolved, it was edited and the flower was cut and paste onto the makeup that was being advertised, we saw that while everything changed around the flower, the flower pretty much stayed the same.  We also learned about how fake some advertisements are, in that they make the product they are selling look completely different.  In the United States, there are laws about how if you are advertising a makeup or hair product, the model must actually be wearing that makeup or hair product and no other products enhancing the way the product works.  This is different in other countries and can make people spend money of things they did not really want or need.  The fieldwork was really interesting and really helped us learn about both sides of our topic.