Lena Dunham thanks Glamour for 'letting my cellulite do the damn thing’
Lena Dunham, the creator/director/actor/producer of the TV show Girls, is thanking Glamour magazine for laying off the Photoshop for a cover shoot and "letting [her] cellulite do the damn thing."
On Instagram, Dunham said she always felt insecure about her "potbelly, rabbit teeth [and] knock knees" growing up. Then, Dunham writes, her body became a central part of the conversation about her show ("always through the lens of "isn't she brave? Isn't it such a bold move to show THAT body on TV?""). Her looks became the subject of comments on social media that Dunham says made her "ache" for teen girls watching the abuse unfold in real time.
To Dunham, the cover is a victory.
"[T]oday this body is on the cover of a magazine that millions of women will read, without photoshop (sic), my thigh on full imperfect display," she wrote Tuesday in a post that's since been liked by more than 100k Instagram users.
Dunham's complicated relationship with magazine airbrushing has evolved since Girls began (HBO airs its final season this year). She was incensed in 2014 when Jezebel.com published un-retouched photos from Vogue. Then, last spring, she apologized to a Spanish magazine for accusing them of Photoshopping her on their cover (they didn't). In the aftermath, she wrote an essay saying she was done with letting herself be retouched on the covers of magazines.
"I don't recognize my own f--ing body anymore," she wrote to her fans in a Lenny letter. "And that's a problem."
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