Photoshopping is as much a part of fashion magazines as the clothes, uber-thin models and perfume ads — no shock there. When a celebrity is looking too greasy, “chubby” or tired, a few brush strokes on a computer screen can take that away, which appears to be what happened to at least one of the photos of Adele in a recent Vogue article.
Adele, the 20-year-old Grammy winner with the killer cords, was styled by Vogue for the awards and subsequently photographed by Annie Leibovitz for an article in the magazine’s “Shape” issue . Of course, when a female celebrity doesn’t fall in line with the others in the weight department, nearly all articles about her tout her “voluptuous” or “curvy” physical attributes — just so we all know that they noticed.
The photograph above that accompanies the online Vogue piece seems to have quite a bit of Adele’s curves missing, prompting outrage from fans, media outlets and irritating celebrity bloggers bent on blaming Leibovitz for slimming down the singer. (Hey Perez, we highly doubt a star photog like Annie would be Photoshopping her own work.)
Even if she were posed that way to appear slimmer, she either lost a bit of weight before the shoot or was digitally slenderized. The reaction to the photograph has been mostly negative, with people accusing the mag of disguising Adele’s bod because it isn’t up to their standards — but is that really a surprise?
When is the last time you flipped through a magazine that wasn’t chock-full of starved-looking models? They even try to make already-slim stars look slimmer. The real outrage, in my opinion, should come in the content. Why, when a female celebrity or woman in general is larger than a size 2, is there a need to mention what she eats or how she isn’t losing sleep over the way she looks:
After the ceremony, she skips the Woodstock-themed official Grammy after-party and what promises to be the achingly cool after-after-party that Coldplay have told her about down in Santa Monica. Instead she repairs to an In-N-Out Burger on Venice Boulevard. Her publicist Benny Tarantini takes the order. ‘Maybe I should get two milkshakes,’ she says, laughing. ‘To match me Grammys!'”
The article does discuss Adele’s style, her “few inhibitions about the way she looks” and her success in music. Should we be irritated by Vogue‘s Adele shoot? Or should we chalk it up to “the way things are?”
