Lena Dunham doesn’t take kindly to Photoshop. She’s so adamant about excessive airbrushing that she publicly slammed a magazine for retouching her cover — and later realized they didn’t Photoshop it at all. Tentaciones Magazine ran an image of Dunham styled as iconic model Twiggy that originally appeared in Entertainment Weekly in 2012.
Upon seeing the photo, shot by Ruven Afanador, Dunham criticized the magazine’s alleged airbrushing tactics on Instagram. She wrote, “Oh hello Spanish magazine Tentaciones! I am genuinely honored to be on your cover and so happy you used a pic by @ruvenafanador – he always makes me feel gorgeous. But this is not what my body has ever looked like or will ever look like – mad photoshop has been done to this iteration. So if you’re into what I do, why not be honest with your readers? Much love, Lena.”
The magazine immediately responded with an open letter denying the claims that they Photoshopped the image. “We do not use Photoshop nor other digital tools to change the physical appearance of our cover stars, nor in the features to be found inside. On this occasion, the only thing we did was to crop the image to adapt it to the format of our front page.”
The letter went on to say that Lena Dunham’s publicist approved the image. “Of course, we are aware that any media outlet needs to be responsible for what it publishes, but this photo was previously approved by the agency, the photographer and your publicist. […] we used the original that they sent us without applying any kind of retouching. Those who are familiar with and follow our magazine will know that we do not use Photoshop nor other digital tools to change the physical appearance of our cover stars, nor in the features to be found inside. On this occasion, the only thing we did was to crop the image to adapt it to the format of our front page.”
Dunham acknowledged that Tentaciones was not responsible for Photoshopping the image, but did imply that perhaps it was retouched before they downloaded it from Corbis. “Hey Tentaciones- thank you for sending the uncropped image (note to the confused: not unretouched, uncropped!) and for being so good natured about my request for accuracy. I understand that a whole bunch of people approved this photo before it got to you- and why wouldn’t they? I look great. But it’s a weird feeling to see a photo and not know if it’s your own body anymore (and I’m pretty sure that will never be my thigh width but I honestly can’t tell what’s been slimmed and what hasn’t.)”
She did acknowledge that the rampant use of retouching is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed, even if Tentaciones isn’t the guilty party in this particular instance. One thing’s for sure: other magazines will certainly think twice before Photoshopping Dunham in the future lest they end up in a social media firestorm.
[via The Guardian]
