When I first glanced over the Disney ads, I said to myself, "Ok, another slick photoshop montage. Annie Leibovitz has finally caved." Then I took another look, and began to change my mind. Sure, the Disney shots are pure photoshop creations, but that's never really been the thing that bothers me about severely altered images. What bugs me is that people seem to think its ok to publish a crappy image, as long as it's been irradiated by the healing brush and the clone stamp. Leibovitz's Disney photographs are arranged so precisely that they could be paintings. I would say that they could even be stills from the films, but they're too precise for even that. They are hyper-real Disney archetypes. They're real enough for us jaded types who haven't felt the magic in years to actually get into it a little. Disney movies are familiar---so are celebrities. I won't go so far as to say that the photographs are clever per se, but I couldn't help but smile when I saw Beyoncé as Alice, or Baryshnikov as Peter Pan. By tossing two incredibly recognizable images together (the costume and the celebrity face inhabiting it), Leibovitz forces us to make a choice: is this really Prince Charming? Or is it actually David Beckham? Some would say it could be both. Some would have a hard time reconciling the two. Aside from being visually stunning, the photographs actually introduce an interesting dialogue between the notions of recognizability and celebrity. The two may be similar, but they (and their respective components of Leibovitz's pictures) are just different enough to introduce some tension into the mix.
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