You may already have heard that Kelly Clarkson was given a severe computerized slim-down for the cover of SELF magazine.  Nothing new there!  Compare the side-by-side photos of the real Kelly Clarkson with the fake magazine cover version and decide for yourself.

Let's not pretend to be shocked by this.  The really fascinating part is that SELF magazine's Editor In Chief, Lucy Danziger, has written a breezy blog post which brushes off the controversy, while at the same time being one of the saddest things I've ever read.

Danziger's blog post doesn't read like a calculating spin doctoring move.  It seems relatively spontaneous and fresh, which means that either she is a seriously talented writer (entirely possible, given her job position) or in terrible denial (entirely possible, given her job position). 

She begins her post by essentially saying, "Only a fool would act shocked that a magazine cover photo has been Photoshopped."  Which, point taken.  Is anyone still surprised by this?  Well they shouldn't be.

But the next paragraph is just gold.  To illustrate her point that "Everyone does it, it's great," Danziger tells us about the time she ran a marathon - then asked the pixel monkeys to slim down her pictures, because "my hips looked big."

Your hips.  Looked big.  In the picture taken after you RAN A MARATHON.  What kind of body image issues does a person have, if they look at a picture of themselves at the finish line of a marathon and think, "I look fat"?  She also demurely adds that "I was heavier then."  Heavier?  You mean you've lost weight since you ran a marathon?  Oh well good, I wouldn't want to think you were some kind of marathon-running porker.  Glad to hear it.

I find it utterly fascinating that Danziger is both a victim of body dysphoria as perpetuated by the women's magazine trade, and its most outspoken proponent.  She goes on to offer the following breathtaking series of rationalizations:

This is art, creativity and collaboration. It's not, as in a news photograph, journalism. It is, however, meant to inspire women to want to be their best. That is the point.

Well, news flash: most people assume that photographs are real.  That is, after all, the point of using a photograph and not an illustration.  Cutting forty pounds off a model with the mouse is not the same as putting her in better makeup, because makeup is real.  The best-of-the-best vacation pictures that you save?  Those are real.  Arranging the lighting so that it flatters the model's face?  That is real. 

Once the photograph leaves the darkroom and is loaded on a tech's monitor for computerized slimmery, it is no longer real.  Danziger says it's "meant to inspire women to be their best."  Unfortunately, what they're inspiring women to be is something that is not real.  Kelly Clarkson doesn't look like that.  Danziger's post-marathon picture?  She doesn't look like that. 

Danziger fails to realize that this right here is exactly what everyone has a problem with.  Holding out something that isn't real - but looks real - as an "inspiration" for women?  I'm sorry, but that's just evil and cruel and wrong.