On Pointe: Cast In The Right Light

By Natalie Shobana Ambrose
theSun, Malaysia
September 9th, 2010

The camera used to be something that only the adults had and could use. I remember wishing when I was younger that our family camera would be a Polaroid camera. Instant! Who could wait months, weeks until a roll of 36 exposures colour film could be used up and then a second wait to when the roll would be taken to the shop by which time when the photos came out, we’d all have grown a few inches.

But everyone’s a photographer these days thanks to technology, from little kids with camera phones to the so-called “camwhores’ and “photogs” who are perpetually glued to their camera.

I have a few friends who actually exercise veto power in deleting photos as soon as they are taken just because they don’t look so good in it. I’m guilty of that too. Though some have even requested photos be deleted once on the web because on second thought, they only approve of two of the 50 taken.

I on the other hand think it’s important to fully represent even when people take photos of me chomping down my food and I look like I’ve just put a whole hamster in my mouth, because some days- that’s what I look like!

On the other hand, the first thing I look at in a photo that has me in it, is me… and how good I look, then I start looking at the other people. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s guilty.

There are many theories to this. Some say it’s because we are not constantly looking at ourselves, so we want to see what we look like to others. Others subscribe to the opinion that we’re just vain. The people who shy away from the camera are equally vain I believe – just masked in modesty but really vain- because they think they don’t look too great.

Oh lets admit it we’re all vain and like to be cast in the right light.

Some celebrities have clauses- photos from the waist up only or from certain angles, anything else must be destroyed. Some take it further and in interviews or magazine articles prohibit certain topics from being brought up, so they are cast in a better light.

Imagine only permitted to ask questions on their philanthropy efforts and not being allowed to ask Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan about their drug habit or non-habit after their arrests. That would be a form misrepresentation but it does happen.

That interview wouldn’t sell many magazines because it’s been ‘photoshopped.’ But then again that is public relations.

The media has been asked to cast reports in a positive light and the people urged to trust only mainstream papers. You have to wonder, if reporting is controlled are the people really getting the truth?

Of course reporting is also biased based on the stance of the writer and his background and motives and who runs the paper. Though should people not be allowed to make up our own minds and refute, dispute, agree and approve what is true to the individual?

There was a time when I had to read eight newspapers a day for many years as part of my job. Much to my amusement the same article would sound so different depending on which newspaper was reporting it.

I had the advantage of deciding for myself what I believed after reading a few versions of the story and which mainstream media regularly tried to sensationalize or create a divide. Then I’d also read some of the online news portals take on the same story and after piecing everything together, it actually read as if each media outfit was reporting a different story.

Sometimes, the facts of a story change as the days go by. So unless there is someone actually monitoring each story daily, the undiscerning reader would be taken on a joyride.

What I’m saying is nothing new, all you have to do is just get a few mainstream dailies and see how different the truth sounds and don’t forget the online news media.

At the end of the day, we decide what we really want to believe, after all, today’s paper will be tomorrow’s nasi lemak wrapping.