14 DAY TRIAL // Jennifer Lawrence is very outspoken on questions of self-esteem and body image, even admitting that she was against Photoshopping on magazine covers, ads, and movie posters. We can only imagine how she’s feeling about an older cover of Flare that resurfaced online the other day and has gone viral.
Attached to this article is the official cover, which Flare ran in 2011. Below, embedded at the end of the article, are two GIFs showing what exactly was altered in the original photo to make Jennifer “perfect” in the final pic.
Since this is a 2011 photo, the fact that Jennifer is looking pretty flawless in it isn’t news. The route taken by the magazine to make her look this way is, though – and it’s reopened the debate on how far publications will go to sell women an ideal of beauty that has absolutely nothing to do with real life.
This also explains why the GIFs resurfaced online and went viral: when you have a woman as beautiful as Jennifer, what is the point of trying to “perfect” her? If she “needs” retouching, then what hope is there for regular women who aren’t as genetically blessed as she is? What kind of message do they take from this?
While angry fans continue to vent online, experts warn that people, be they women or men, should approach these publications (or any other kind of promo material) with the thought of retouching foremost in their mind.
It’s obvious that this practice of over-Photoshopping won’t be going away anytime soon, so that means we should look at these materials knowing only too well that they are not true reflections of reality. That doesn’t necessarily mean that no damage is done by them.
“Everyone knows that most images in the media have been retouched, but being able to intellectualize something doesn't override its potential damage to one's self-esteem,” Jean Fain, M.S.W., Harvard University-affiliated psychotherapist and author, says for Shine Yahoo!.
Still, “appreciating your body from head to toe is the antidote to low self-esteem,” she underlines.
