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Now, let me be clear, I love the fact that Sara Jessica Parker is not classically beautiful but is still considered a style and fashion icon. I love that! However, I take huge issue with her recent cover photo in Allure magazine. The magazine airbrushed every line, freckle, mark, indentation, and pore the woman has. She looks like she’s made of wax. Don’t get me wrong (and I’m extremely reticent to say this), she does look good…but come on! Even 5-year-olds have a line or two around their eyes when they smile…and she’s in her forties.
My biggest problem with images like this that as an “average” woman, I look at these photos and find it difficult not to set impossible standards for myself. This is what I’m supposed to aspire to look like, after all, it is a fashion and beauty magazine. But even she doesn’t look like this. I can appreciate that Allure is a business and their business is to sell magazines, but there’s got to be a happy medium - between stripping Sarah Jessica of nearly everything that makes her human and showing her every flaw.
It’s no wonder that we love seeing paparazzi shots of celebrities going to the grocery store looking, well, normal! Bags under their eyes, hair disheveled, no makeup. It’s not that we’re evil and we want to see celebrities looking their worst…it’s just that it’s comforting for us that they are, in fact, “average” like us. They present themselves in magazines and on the red carpet after being buffed, polished, tightened, plumped, professionally made up, perfectly lit and looking like goddesses. There’s no way we can look like that unless we too spent thousands of dollars and several days preparing ourselves. It’s a small consolation to us that it’s not real…it’s pretend…and good for us for coming to that realization. And shame on Allure for not celebrating how attractive Sara Jessica Parker really is…pores and all.
1 response so far ↓
1 beanball // Feb 23, 2008 at 7:43 pm
so true. this pic doesn’t even look like her. she’s more interesting.
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