Utah Highschool Yearbook Photos Altered (Prudes using Photoshop)

If there is going to be a specific dress code for yearbook pics, then that code should be enforced when the pics are taken. Don't meet the code? No pic taken, "photo not available" goes in the yearbook.

Simple stuff, really.

Celia Cyanide said:

No it doesn't.

I live in Minneapolis where there is a large Somali population, and the women always have their heads covered. They never look disapprovingly at other women who do not have their heads covered. They understand that not everyone shares their religious beliefs, and they don't expect them to.

These images were not altered to protect anyone else's "freedom of religion."

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This. People who are religiously or otherwise "uncomfortable" with tattoos, bare shoulders or cleavage should apply their spayshul morality to THEMSELVES and leave those who believe differently alone. This included leaving their photographs alone, because the real disrespect is in forcing a change on others. It's rude.

Your comfort is your responsibility, and if someone's appearance makes you comfortable you don't get to throw a tarp over them: you get to cast your delicate eyes elsewhere.

I don't even want to address the sexism inherent in declaring female torsos shameful.

robeiae said:

If there is going to be a specific dress code for yearbook pics, then that code should be enforced when the pics are taken. Don't meet the code? No pic taken, "photo not available" goes in the yearbook.

Simple stuff, really.

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How dare you bring logic and foresight into this.

Hopefully, next year, the school will.

I have never heard a religious justification for school dress codes. Usually it's in the interest of "not distracting boys." The other one I've heard is that boys like to cut spaghetti strings with scissors, which I've never actually seen or heard of happening, which is something that rather should make the boy be severely punished.

So I guess their logic is that a girl with bare shoulders sitting right in front of them would cause fewer problems than actually being able to take the terribly lewd picture home for themselves.

Williebee said:

How dare you bring logic and foresight into this.

Hopefully, next year, the school will.

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Aren't most senior portraits taken outside of school though? (At least here, most people have them done with a professional photographer). I suppose you could still pass send kids with a do's and don'ts sheet, but still, rather subjective. (and completely unnecessary IMO)

A bit of context here – a teenage boy who is a student at the school responds thusly:

He responded by opening last year’s yearbook to a page titled "Wasatch Stud Life."

Boys in the photos are sleeveless, with shirts pulled open to bare chests, boxer shorts are showing and a tattoo is on display. "Studs doin’ what studs do best!" the page proclaims.

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http://m.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile3/58007750-219/yearbook-dress-girls-code.html.csp

raburrell said:

Aren't most senior portraits taken outside of school though?

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This certainly wasn't the case for me in high school. Is it now? I have no idea.


Regardless, I think the school's actions were waaaay over the line. Seriously, I think some people should lose their jobs for basically manufacturing pictures. That's propaganda, plain and simple, and it should not be tolerated.

Maybe it's a regional thing - we did in HS, and that was mumblefurf years ago. And just got a graduation announcement for a friend's kid which looked like a professional sitting.

But yeah, what you said for the rest of it.

But even if people are getting portraits done outside of the school, the solution is the same: the school provides a specific dress code for the pics. People who bring in pics that do not follow the code don't get their pics in the yearbook.

Yes, that'd work - pretty much what I suggested above. (Although as these threads tend to point out, dress codes are often suggestive and it puts those who didn't write them in a position of having to interpret them.)

From the sounds of it, if the students were made aware of this dress code at all, it wasn't communicated very well. Or perhaps decided on after the fact.

Are sleeveless tops/dresses and low necklines against the school dress code? It doesn't sound like it, since the girls had been dressing like this all year without reprimand. But they altered some of the photos but not others where students were dressed similarly to how they'd dressed all year.

It's possible some people were being picked on, but it's more likely that they simply had different people going over piles of pictures and interpreting the policy in their own ways, hence the inconsistent results. Hopefully, they learned their lesson here.

I don't remember this being an issue back in the pre-photoshop days. Then, if someone was dressed inappropriately for school pictures, they'd have told the person at the time and possibly provided a shirt or jacket or something to put on over.

And boy, those bare clavicles! Very, very provocative.

robeiae said:

But even if people are getting portraits done outside of the school, the solution is the same: the school provides a specific dress code for the pics. People who bring in pics that do not follow the code don't get their pics in the yearbook.

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Yes, if the school altered photos that private photographers had taken, they would all be royally pissed. You don't just go up and paint on someone else's painting. If the school hired the photographer, s/he might have known what they planned to do, but I do wonder.