Celebrities make strong statement against photo retouching

By SHAMA DOSHI

The Grammy winning singer Lorde recently spoke out against the practice of photo retouching, using her Twitter account to send a message to fans.

In her tweet she posted two photos of herself from the Lollapalooza music festival in Santiago, Chile, one obviously retouched and one showing her natural skin.

Along with the photos Lorde stated, “I find this curious two photos from today, one edited so my skin is perfect and one real. Remember, flaws are okay.”

According to the Huffington Post article Lorde is just one of many celebrities who has recently been speaking out against retouched photographs.

Among these celebrities are Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Gaga and Shailene Woodley, who started tweeting “selfies” of themselves without wearing any makeup.

Shailene Woodley went into detail about her discomfort with photograph retouching in an interview with People magazine entitled “Shailene Woodley Bares Her Soul (and More) About Beauty in Hollywood.”

The article remarks on how Woodley will frequently appear on red carpets without wearing any makeup, which is very rare for a Hollywood star to do.

Woodley told People she was “inspired to do this after seeing a photo of herself in a magazine in which ‘I had big red lips…boobs about three times the size they are in real life…my stomach was completely flat. My skin was also flawless.”

Woodley went on to remark on how “it was not a proper representation of who I am…I just want to be me.” Her statement reveals that photo retouching is unfair to celebrities in that it creates images untrue to the people they represent.

These instances of stars speaking out against perfected photographs of themselves show that even celebrities fall victim to unrealistic body-image standards. Those who practice drastic photo retouching and remove the flaws of celebrities are promoting terrible ideals of what people should look like.

Another Huffington Post article by Hillary Miller discussed how “muscular legs are reduced to twigs befitting a teen and mature beauty is airbrushed back into youth.”

This reveals a tendency to hide the fact that celebrities age just like everyone else and sets a false standard for beauty.

However, even though “many celebrities…have been the victim of extreme editing…few speak out against the common industry practice.”

Although not many celebrities are fighting against the practice of excessive retouching, it is a hopeful sign that some, such as Lorde and Shaleine Woodley, are, especially young women. By speaking out against photographs that depict fake versions of themselves, they are helping reveal that perfection does not truly exist.

The retouching of celebrity photographs is not only detrimental to those in the pictures but also the people who look at them.

Teenagers who idolize celebrities may find it hard to live up to these seemingly perfect visions of beauty.

If more celebrities start promoting natural beauty and rejecting photo shopped images, our society will move toward a much healthier ideal of beauty.