Entertainment

Is This What Emma Stone Looks like Naked?

by Anna Klassen

One of the craziest things I was taught in a college classroom, that still boggles my mind to this day, was learned in a course about photography. The class was called "Photofiction," and on day one, we learned something that would transform the way I perceived images forever: Photography, in its inception, was never intended to capture real life. It was perceived as an art form, and even the earliest images ever captured were manipulated in the dark room. It wasn't until much later that photography was seen as a way to capture real life. Some of the most famous photographs in history were distorted. The infamous portrait of Lincoln standing at his writing desk is actually two images stitched together, that of Lincoln's head and another man's body. That photo was taken in 1860. "PhotoShop" technology has existed since the first camera, and the two have grown and evolved together. So when a naked photo of Emma Stone went viral online, we must beg the obvious question: Is it really her?

TMZ reports that a source close to the Amazing Spider-Man actress says the picture, which features a red head snapping a naked selfie, is not Stone. Outlets have been reporting that it is indeed the Help actress in the nude, but we aren't so sure.

First of all, the woman in the photo, while both pale and redheaded like Stone, has the camera covering part of her face, while long, side-swept bangs cover another portion. Secondly, the photo is very pixilated, and while we can sort of make out the arch of her eyebrow and cat-eye makeup on one eye, it could honestly be a picture of any thin, redheaded woman. Also, on the off chance that this photo was created in the intention of setting up Stone for her nude debut, who's to say it wasn't Photoshopped? Every millennial and his grandmother has a version of PhotoShop on their phone, so how easy would it be to splice together a few images and end up with this somewhat crappy picture? If they did it 1860, it certainly can be done now.

So while it was nice of Stone's friend to squash schoolboy hopes that it could be Stone, if you have half an internet-savvy brain, you already knew the photo was fake.

You can view the photo in question here.