You can touch up something and you can distort something. Kelly Clarkson has been in the news recently and not for her singing. She is on the cover of SELF magazine with bold letters next to her that says SLIM DOWN YOUR WAY. Now, that tag line isn’t part of the Clarkson interview but it does point out the controversy of the photo. SELF magazine freely admits to doing the ‘touch up’ and gave this statement to defend their decision:

"Yes, of course we do post-production corrections on our images," SELF editor in chief Lucy Danziger told "Entertainment Tonight." "Kelly Clarkson exudes confidence, and is a great role model for women of all sizes and stages of their life. She works out and is strong and healthy, and our picture shows her confidence and beauty. She literally glows from within. That is the feeling we'd all want to have. We love this cover and we love Kelly Clarkson."

Sounds like a very lovely and gracious statement. Too bad it’s all a lie. You can have touch up, which would be like putting on makeup, and you have what they did which is like plastic surgery. They say Clarkson is a role model for women of all sizes yet they save a WHOLE lot of pounds from the cover. I went to the SELF website were they have a video of the photoshoot done with Clarkson. They even have part of the video showing her in the clothes that will eventually be on the cover. I’m going to be kind and say the woman isn’t that skinny. I’m not insulting her, but she isn’t the thin person they placed on the magazine cover. It’s like they took her head and placed it on someone else’s body.

We have this great disconnect in our society, where we say we want women to exude confidence and feel comfortable in their own skin, yet the name magazines and news outlets that moan and complain about how young girls are given bad images are themselves guilty of perpetuating the insecurity. It used to be that magazines catering to men were the big culprits. Airbrushing is a given in a magazine like Playboy or Maxim. Years ago, when more models showed up at Comicon, it would be a shock walking around and seeing models who looked fantastic in magazines and then seeing them in real life and realizing the bumps, blemishes, bad teeth, and other imperfections. The goddess of print looked like mere mortals in real life. I remember one ‘traumatic’ year when a number of secondary female characters from Deep Space 9 were walking the convention floor. I didn’t recognize them because they were completely different from what they looked like on TV. I realized makeup, strategically placed padding and lighting could really improve on looks.

It goes for men too. Last year I got very close to Robert Culp. I saw him a few days ago on TV from something that had been done two years earlier. He looked fit, aged well, but that wasn’t the picture I snapped of the man. He looked old, tired and I could see the aging in his face from wrinkles and liver spots.

What’s going on with magazines like SELF however is much more sinister. Like I said they’re doing plastic surgery, not highlights with makeup. Yes, Kelly Clarkson is a girl who likes to eat and she can pack on the pounds. She doesn’t necessarily look bad like that, but with what SELF magazine did, especially with the tag line next to her, makes it seem like she is a new svelte woman when in reality they just took her under the Photoshop knife. There will be many woman and young girls who will try to fulfill that image; not knowing Clarkson isn’t the ‘real’ person on the page.