OK by now most of you have seen the pictorial that has gone viral of pornstars before and after makeup. If you haven’t and you want to, google it. The makeup artist a chick named Melissa Makeup has certainly gotten a mountain of attention over it, despite the admission that had had photo shopped some of the before images to make them look worse.
Some of the girls are OK with these before and after photos being available to the world, many are not. Nobody seems to be arguing whether or not she had the legal right to use these photos but there is an ethical question and even a business one.
It would seem to me that in a situation like this it would be professional to make sure all of the girls that you use are OK with it. If a girl isn’t then dont use the photos….pretty simple if ya ask me. Melissa didn’t do this and as a result there are more than a few Directors who will no longer hire her and there are a lot of performers who will no longer allow her to do their makeup.
Bottom line many feel that Melissa has violated a trust that should never have been violated.
12 Responses
I just worked a shoot this past weekend. I was the still photographer and video shooter. Melissa was the MUA. I didn’t know about Melissa’s before-and-after series of photos but, frankly, while it may be a bubble-burster for some fans, I think Melissa’s photos are positive, not negative. It humanizes porn stars and more. Here’s some 411: plenty of Hollywood’s beautiful women, as well as more than a few mainstream models, look the same in terms of their relative beauty before and after hair and makeup. They’re being made up to create a fantasy. As famed photographer David LaChappelle once said, “If you want reality, take the bus.”
I actually agree with you that it is positive, my problem is more basic, she simply should have asked.
I’m not convinced she didn’t ask. I’m sure most of them asked Melissa why she was snapping the photos and I’m guessing she said it was for marketing herself as an MUA. Marketing herself certainly implies she’d be using the photos in a way that meant others would see them. If the photos hadn’t gone viral, the performers who are complaining wouldn’t give two shits about them.
Check out Melissa’s interview on HuffPost. She says she did ask them. She also posted before-n-after pics of herself because, as she said, it would only be fair to do so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/porn-stars-without-makeup_n_2853817.html
This is actually getting interesting seems this is another case of instagram gone wrong….Im waiting to hear from Melissa but a source tells me she didnt submit them to anyone…they just got picked up
On the gfy website, Vanilla DeVille says “Just FYI guys… Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. This makeup artist has admitted to using an app to make the “before pics” appear worse than they really are, so her “after pics” look better.” Also according to Vanilla DeVille,
“She takes the pics with her phone and posts it on Twitter before she shows it to the models. Didn’t you notice that half of the girls have the age spots of a 70 year old? I personally post pics without make-up on Twitter all the time, as do many of the girls listed on that site, and they don’t look like that.”
I don’t mean to be callous but anyone who lets guys like me shove a video camera and a C-light between their legs and reveal — in stark, high-definition, detail — their genitals and anus for all the world to see shouldn’t be overly concerned about a few “before makeup” photos of their faces. Just saying.
We use Melissa all the time. She’s a brilliant hair/makeup artist with a beautiful positive spirit about her. Every before & after shot that is on her Instagram is there because the model gave her permission to post them there. She’s been doing this for a year now and many of the models have tweeted those pics out to their fans. If anyone of those models had a issue, they could have asked Melissa to take them down…and she would have.
Melissa nor the models never imagined that the press would take her images from her Instagram account, without her approval or credit and start blasting them all over the net….but that’s what happened. Then more press/news companies started doing the same thing and from there is just went viral.
Most of the girls are OK with it but a few have issues with it…..accusing Melissa of selling her pictures and/or her story – which of course is complete bullshit. She was just as surprised at how this played out as anyone.
I’ve worked with Melissa many times and she’s never used an app to make the models look worse in their before pics – as someone has suggested. The models would have called her out on that in a heartbeat and none has. She’s one of the good girls in our biz and rightfully so. Not only is she one of the best hair/makeup artist that I’ve ever used, she’s also reliable, dependable and 100% professional.
LOL perfectly said
Ditto what Dean said. I’ve worked with Melissa many times and she’s a terrific MUA and always fun to have on a set. She gets along great with the performers and really takes her job seriously.
The before / after photos is something Melissa has been doing for a while now, over a year. I’ve seen a lot of the girls retweet the photos. Melissa is good peoples and a damn good MUA. No one feels any trust has been violated, that is totally ridiculous. Not like she leaked anyone’s SS number or where they live. These porn girl do a good enough job of doing that on their own with their radio shows and twitter accounts. Hypocrites.
When I first saw the photos of the women before makeup was applied, I assumed part of the problem is the resolution of the camera picking up flaws that older cameras would not make noticable. When I have watched Alias, I usually don’t notice Jennifer Garner’s freckles. When I saw an episode with her in direct sunlight, I was surprised by how many freckles she has. When Faye Reagan first started, her freckles showed up a lot more then later on.
I think the most serious allegation is that Melissa Makeup altered the photos. I wish Vanilla DeVille would show proof to back up her claim that an app was used to make the non-makeup photos look worse. I have complained for a long time about actresses wearing too much makeup but when I saw many of the photos, I started wondering if many of the actresses need it to cover up their flaws. When Sunny Lane first started, her face looked much more natural. Sunny is still very attractive but she has added a lot more makeup and fake eyelashes, which is a distraction. If it’s not broken then don’t fix it.