Kelly Clarkson Airbrushing Backlash A Good Sign

By Kelly Turner on August 19th, 2009

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SELF Magazine has recently been under a lot of scrutiny for their apparently extremely airbrushed cover picture of curvy singer and “American Idol” winner, Kelly Clarkson.  The issue, ironically enough, was titled “The Total Body Confidence Issue.”

SELF Editor in Chief Lucy Danzinger appeared on the NBC’s “The Today Show” on August 14th to defend the photo.  The retouched cover image is so far from reality, the singer is almost unrecognizable. SELF has never denied that the photo was retouched, and Danzinger explained SELF’s decision to alter the picture:

“Kelly has this amazing spirit, the kind of joie de vivre that certain people possess that makes you want to stand closer to them, hoping that you can learn what they know. In this case, you get the feeling Kelly has not let fame spoil her, but also that she was just born confident, with a generosity of spirit that is all about others and rarely about herself. She is, like her music, giving and strong and confident and full of gusto. Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best. Did we publish an act of fiction? No. Not unless you think all photos are that. But in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand. I love her spirit and her music and her personality that comes through in our interview in SELF. She is happy in her own skin, and she is confident in her music, her writing, her singing, her performing. That is what we all relate to. Whether she is up or down in pounds is irrelevant (and to set the record straight, she works out and does boot-camp-style training, so she is as fit as anyone else we have featured in SELF). Kelly says she doesn’t care what people think of her weight. So we say: That is the role model for the rest of us.”

Wait, wait, wait. So since Miss Clarkson isn’t too worried about her weight, you can completely change it to make the cover more appealing because she won’t get mad? We aren’t stupid.  You put her on the cover because we know who she is and we know what she looks like.  You can’t cut her vertically in half and expect not only for no one to notice, but for no one to be outraged as most of the publicity swirling her right now is about her weight?

Yes, Kelly is confident in her size, and good for her.  But apparently, SELF magazine, you are not as comfortable with her weight, or at least not when its slapped on to your magazine cover.

I’ll even leave the “truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand” and the altering her appearance to “make her look her personal best” comments alone (my personal best is if i can somehow tame my cowlick, not when I shave 30 pounds off of my frame) mainly because I don’t even know what that means.

I often have qualms with these types of magazines and the hypocritical messages they send, and write about them a lot.  It’s nice to be able to take a break and have America share my outrage for me.  The fact that Miss Danzinger had to go on a national morning show and feebly try to explain herself and her decision to avoid any more negative PR shows me that America is wising up.  We not longer are going to allow these images to be burned into our, and more importantly, our children’s brains telling them we are not good enough the way we are.

So rage on, and pass the message to out littler ones. Use it as a teaching moment. Kids know who Kelly Clarkson is, and what she actually looks like.  Use the magazine to show them how magazines alter images, and to what extent.

Then read Kelly Clarkson’s own words about her weight and how she feels about her self in the interview (but wait till it’s available online August 25th- I wouldn’t want you to spend your hard earned money supporting this crap.)  It’s a shame her awesome message seems to have been airbrushed away.