Kelly Clarkson loses weight the Photoshop way

Every magazine Photoshops...I've just come to expect it.  I know going into it that what's on the cover isn't real.  It's less about photography, and more about graphic design, IMHO.  I do find it 'interesting' that they did *so much* Photoshopping on the cover photo, considering what Clarkson said about her fluctuating weight in the article.

It's really sick how they try to sell you this 'accept yourself' for who you are, and then they go and artificially enhance someone's appearance to what they deem is perfection. The whole point of learning to love ourselves is to accept who we are, accept that we'll never be a size 0 waif, and still feel good enough because what matters is the person we are, and not the shell we show. Magazines like Self do every woman and young girl a disservice by printing one thing, and then through their actions contradict all the positive messages. 

I am always glad when actors and/or singers refuse to diet themselves to death to look like a size 0 nothing. I like it when they re-assert themselves and enjoy who they are, and how they look. I really dislike it when magazines decide that their look isn't good enough for their cover, so they go and mess it up to make them look 'perfect' 

If the retouching/airbrushing is to smooth out a wrinkle in clothing that detracts from the person, or maybe hair sticking out at an odd angle I can understand. I am 100% against retouching to make someone look thinner. We have enough issues with people starving themselves to death to have magazines that supposedly empower us to perpetuate that stick figure image by deeming a healthy person not perfect enough unless they manage to make said image look thinner. It's not just about selling a product. 

"Come fly away with me, right in the land of eternity"

That argument only works if they've tried the opposite.

How about they make an attempt, just once, to publish an issue with an unretouched picture, showing a curvy, plus sized, more to love or just simply fat woman and see what happens?

I bet people would rush to buy it.

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"I know it hurts. But it's life, and it's real. And sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's life, and it's sorta all we have." Garden State

Does anyone know what Clarkson had to say about this?

She acknowledged REASONABLE photoshopping. I don't think anyone here really has a serious problem with them photoshopping out a strange wrinkle, a stray flyaway hair, a color that looked good in person but funny when printed out.

What I have a problem with is intentionally slimming down her arms or things like that. ESPECIALLY for an article that's even about how she's okay with her weight as is. 

Everyone knows that is not America Ferrera. I hate these idiotic beauty standards. What is ugly to one person is beautiful to the next. Gosh let people be people that is why people hate each other now because of insecure idiotic nutcases like these editors who ask for these retouches who hate themselves, so they tell others to hate themselves as well.

Unless you have body dysmorphia or some kind of serious disease you need to be slapped with a self help book, like ASAP.

That is on my list for Kwanzaa

(hands out self help book...I don't care if you want one take one and pass it down...Trying to pick up where Tyra and Oprah left off...keep the rotation going...

Disclaimer: these books do not go well with Ben and Jerry's and Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo...just have a book club party! Just trying to boost self esteem until the FDA approves the self esteem bars! Thank me later!) 

Matt's world you just live in it!

 It has become the "norm" if it isn't perfect, it can be perfected whether naturally or otherwise. No wonder no one trusts anyone, we all seem to tell that little white lie to make us seem better in others eyes to be accepted.  It starts in school to just belong or not to be picked at.  Most of our own parents couldn't accept who we are so we become liars to cover who we are just to be part of the family.  So every image has to be perfect to be accepted by society. Honestly, would you buy anything if it wasn't perfect, whole, pretty? Shameful isn't it?

I can't really tell from reading Lucy's blog if they digitally made Kelly Clarkson thinner? The title of this article suggests so, but frankly I can't tell, since Kelly's weight does fluctuate.

When 3 of the cover articles are about losing weight (seriously, 3 different articles in one magazine about losing weight? Is there NOTHING else they could think to write about besides "You're a fat slob even though you weigh 125 pounds. Geez, eat some celery already!") I come to expect they want all their cover models to look stick thin.

Not surprised at all. Still angry, though.

I'l be the first to admit personally i am diet whore... no getting fat for me... but kelly is awesome and can pull of the curiver (in no way fat at all) look she is smoking hot whatever. The fact that any magazine feels the need to slim down the cover stars is just a sad fact of the relaity we live in today its not going to change at least until the vast majority of the public (including little feminist me) embraces the little extra weight and imo its ever gonna happen so we just need to accept what we see in print is never going to be real. 

Kathryn Prescott for AfterEllen's Hot 100!! 

Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything but temptation"

I wish people would focus more on her music ability and the person she is rather than her appearence.  That's what's wrong with the media today. They all focus on surface things that in my mind are completely idiotic.  Kelly is beautiful and talented, and that's all that matters. She didn't need a magazine cover touch-up to get to where she is at today.

such crap. Kelly is a beautiful girl.

To be honest I am kinda past the whole photoshopping hooha...Me and my friends will buy the magazines and talk about the fact that certain celebrities have been made thinner etc... But I think as long as you acknowledge this fact then its really no big deal. Lucy Danziger totally chose the wrong way to approach the subject though because she is right that the cover is what sells the magazine but she should have just said that and maybe apolagized to anyone who would be offended because what she said just emphasized the fact that she obviously believes that the editing is fine and that no one would be offended by it...Because they would be, I'm not a big girl but I am a little shocked that they would feel the need to change kelly clarksons apearence, she is beautiful the way she is and she knows that so why can't the rest of the world, its not fair on bigger girls to portray her as someone who doesn't accept her weight, because I think that is what they are doing which is why we live in a world were women think it is better to be thin when sometimes its not always healthier at all...I have a real mixed opinion on the whole photoshop thing tbh lol

God, on the cover, she doesn't even look like Kelly anymore ... look at her face - that ain't Kelly !

 

Kelly is beautiful and the girl photoshopped on that cover AIN'T !!!! 

 

xxx 

! I luv it - I luv it - I luv it !

I think she is totally awesome! and always seems really down to earth in tv interviews. i really hope she comes back over to the UK to tour some more.. i went in 2006 and she was incredible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woooooooooooo Go Kelly!!!

I think Kelly Clarkson is absolutely gorgeous, and would date her in a heartbeat. Her personality is what makes me swoon and has caused me to have a crush on her since the age of 13 when I first saw her on American Idol. Love ya Kelly!! Way to stick it up society's ass!

I once had a job where I photoshoped photos for a marketing company, and I think people have to realize that in photos sometimes imperfection look way bigger in print then in real life. There aew two main ways to photoshop make the picture look like what you would see if you saw it in real life, or make the picture look as attractive as possible. When I was editing photos my job was to quickly see every imperfection, and make them go away, while still having the picture look believable, it's how it works. in seeing that photoshoot I think it's very possiable that why she looks slimmer is way more about lighting and pose, then photoshop.

she looks so overweight! but I still got a crush on her...=)

There aren't many celebrities I have any interest in, but I have a soft spot for Kelly Clarkson, and I think airbrushing her down was pretty disrespectful. Basically it's saying "You're not pretty enough for the cover of our magazine, so we're going to make a few small adjustments". But as for Brynn's question, "Does anyone know what Clarkson had to say about this?", I'm pretty sure the answer is no, and also that we're not going to find out. Look, this is business: Self is giving Clarkson the most precious thing any celebrity can have -5 million magazine covers of publicity- and in exchange it's understood that if Clarkson has any qualms about their methods, she'll have the good sense to keep them to herself. Not biting the hand that feeds, and all that.

Anyway, I don't think this is really about photoshopping magazine photos, it's about our celebrity obsessed culture and the need for many people to put celebrities on a pedestal and believe they are so much more fabulous than mere mortals. One aspect of that, of course, is that the public has very specific expectations about what their celebrities should look like, at least when they are in the public eye. I once heard Jann Arden say that she has often been told that she was "20 pounds away from superstardom in the US" (for a Canadian artist making it big stateside is like hitting the jackpot -just ask Celine Dion). Now I've never understood this celebrity obsession myself, so I don't have any ideas on how to change it, but if you really believe that people should be judged by what they do rather than how they look it seems to me that would be a good place to start.

Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I have this sneaking suspicion the way the cover was composed wasn't accidental: on the right side you have a slimmed down Clarkson, and right beside her on the left this headline: "Slim Down YOUR Way". It almost seems like it was arranged that way to imply that Clarkson was endorsing the dieting tips in the magazine (subliminal message: "just look at the results!"). And that's just one of three articles on weight loss featured on the cover of the same issue. When Lucy Danziger said on her blog that "It is...meant to inspire women to want to be their best" what she really meant is "It is meant to inspire women to want to look their best by encouraging them to compare themselves to a mostly unattainable standard of beauty, because frankly our whole business plan is predicated on making money by exploiting women's body image insecurities".

To be fair to Danzinger maybe she really is shallow enough to believe that how someone looks is all that really matters. I mean, just look at the magazine she edits.

It's pretty sad how the magazine calls it "corrections." But I'm not surprised because that's what they always do. And they think that making her skinnier will make more people buy the magazine, but the only reason that this statement might have any ounce of truth in it at all is because they have formed this image that to be beautiful, you have to be stick skinny. Wonderful. 

Kelly does look chubby in the video.  She is being filmed from strait on, moving her head naturally, not worried about the position of the camera, which tends to make you look fat and double chinned....  In the cover photo, her head is tilted down (giving her a great jaw line), her chest is out, back arched, she's on a white cover with white pants (and a dot over her hiney) so her bottom half doesn't look as big as if it were a contrast from the background, her arm is positioned away from her body (so it's not smushed up against her body like it would be just hanging naturally), and the shape of it compliments the shape of her body and accentuates that her waist is small..... that photographer knew what they were doing when they took that picture.  Now look at the picture of her in black, with the yellow background.  Her head is thrown back (she's all neck) and her mouth is open guaranteeing that damn near everyone will have a double chin, there is a guy standing behind her with black pants that blends into her, making her look much more thick than she is, her out fit is a contrast to the bright yellow background which makes her silhouette more obvious.... The position can make a huge difference in how a person looks. It makes me think of that whole which line is longer eye trick:

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Yeah, she was photoshopped up..... I am sure she was slimmed down, her blemishes removed, wrinkles done away with, but so what?  We are so quick to judge celebrities about this, but every person I have ever taken a photo of has something that needs touching up.  They did it to your high-school pictures, and you were only handing them out to the people who already cared about you, you weren't getting it put on a cover of a magazine to have the whole world judge you.

I don't think she was turned into a waif for the picture, I think she was just fine-tuned.

I worked in the fashion industry for a bit and was once asked to thin down a 10 year old girl. She was a healthy looking 10 year old to me, very cute for her age too but my boss kept commenting how the shorts looked too tight and the photos needed to be retouched.

But all this is nothing new. We know covers are Photoshoped. Looking at the cover, I can tell they glossed it over and thinned her a bit but I'm not buying that magazine. And knowing or not knowing they did that to an already-gorgeous woman is not gonna be a deciding factor.

Anyway, I buy Elle. Good fashion collages, good articles, and it feels a little more real.
I do think there needs to be a plus-size girl on a cover who hasn't been obviously shooped.

Anybody else looking for social commentary, I recommend a YA book series called UGLIES but I forget the author... The second book is called PRETTIES lol.

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