2 thoughts on “Seventeen magazine vows not to alter images, to ‘celebrate every kind of beauty’

  1. It makes me feel really good that Seventeen magazine agreed to do this! I know that Seventeen is a magazine that so many girls read from the time they are in middle school and all the way through high school. I know that I read it for a very long time and took a lot of the articles and things in it to heart. Photoshop and “perfecting” people for pictures in magazines definitely makes them seem flawless which gives young girls the wrong idea about what it means to be beautiful. A well-known singer, Colbie Caillat, very recently has made it well-known that she is tired of being photoshopped and created to seem perfect and flawless to people. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/13/colbie-caillat-try_n_5581951.html) In this article and video Caillat gives her reasoning for being sick and tired of having to be “perfected” before having her face publicly shown. In the video she is not wearing any make up and did nothing to her hair and she states, “It also felt really cool to be on camera with zero on, like literally nothing on. And then when it got to the full hair and makeup, I actually felt gross. I was just so caked on.” I think that Seventeen magazine and a well-known celebrity like Caillat who is a woman and is making it clear that being photoshopped and airbrushed is not okay can help young girls understand what it means to be beautiful.

  2. What a great decision that this magazine made! I think this was a very smart move for the magazine since it is directed towards younger girls and I believe a parent would have much more confidence letting his/her child read from a magazine that agrees to a policy like this. What really surprised me was the quote from Alexis Jones that CNN stated, “she’d worry that, if magazines portrayed young women who were overweight or had acne as being beautiful, some girls may think it’s OK to live an unhealthy lifestyle.” I never thought of it like that. I think it would only make girls more comfortable in their skin since acne happens to mostly everyone and overweight is not necessarily unhealthy. Also, I think magazine covers shouldn’t only be reserved for “beautiful” people but for all people to be represented. I think it is a very forward-thinking move from Seventeen magazine and I hope other magazines will follow their lead.

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