Feminist Lena Dunham Defends Vogue Photoshopping Her Glamor Shots

Both Girls star Lena Dunham and producer Judd Apatow have been lecturing the press in recent days about the need to see Dunham naked early and often on their low-rated show.

The casual nudity reflects reality, they insist. Having a woman with a flawed physique like Dunham’s naked on a major series is a lesson we all need to learn about beauty and cultural expectations. They have a point even if they had to hector a well-intentioned journalist to make it.

Yet Dunham has no beef with the minds at Vogue magazine nipping and tucking said body to conform to modern beauty standards.

Dunham graces the cover of the glamour magazine, and the accompanying article includes a photograph of the actress that hardly reflects reality.

An annotated gif points out that Dunham’s hips have been pulled in, her jawline slimmed, defined and raised. The bags under her eyes have been removed and the smile line on the right-hand-side of her face has been erased entirely.

One would think Dunham would be outraged by the photoshop work, part of the culture’s attempt to make women feel badly about themselves and conform to an impossible beauty standard.

Nope.

Instead, Dunham is defending the photoshopping nips and tucks.

A fashion magazine is like a beautiful fantasy. Vogue isn’t the place that we go to look at realistic women, Vogue is the place that we go to look at beautiful clothes and fancy places and escapism and so I feel like if the story reflects me and I happen to be wearing a beautiful Prada dress and surrounded by beautiful men and dogs, what’s the problem? If they want to see what I really look like go watch the show that I make every single week,’ Dunham told Slate France.

Couldn’t the same be said for those who pay money each month for the right to see HBO content? Sex and the City thrived on such a notion. Isn’t Girls supposed to be an antidote to such fare?

Will the media, which considers her a new culture icon and a standard bearer for feminist thought, call out Dunham for the hypocrisy?