Babysitting the other night, after the tyke fell asleep I leafed through two celebrity-focused magazines belonging to the mom. Each had a photo that struck me as surprisingly creepy: in one, Heidi Klum, her kids, and another woman are walking down a street. But the woman, who trails the others, has her head neatly covered...by a box of text. In the second, Sarah Jessica Parker is described as walking with her twins. But she holds the hand of only one; the other is holding hands with a woman who walks behind the actress, and while most of the woman's face is obscured by Parker's head, she looks into the camera with her left eye.
The editors' choice to crop out nannies from celebrity photographs - and for many celebrity moms to present their lives as child care-free - has been written about well in other places. What interests me is the pervasive psychology of breezily commenting on the famous person's every move while not acknowledging the visible presence of the woman in the background.
A head eclipsed by words, a lone, staring eye: these would be strange (or comical) editing choices in any publication. But in a celebrity magazine, where all that matters is the famous person, the nanny (or other accidentally photographed staff) is viewed as so inconsequential that hastily or mostly cropping her out is considered good enough. Who's looking at her anyway?
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