Strollerderby

Rachael Leigh Cook Thinks Photoshopping Women’s Bodies is Harmful to Young Girls

Posted by carolyncastiglia on October 25th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
cook Rachael Leigh Cook Thinks Photoshopping Womens Bodies is Harmful to Young Girls

Rachael Leigh Cook suggests women look up "Photoshop Tutorial" in order to understand how celeb images are manipulated.

Actress Rachael Leigh Cook, who you may recognize from the film She’s All That, or from the poignant and effective ad she did for the Partnership for a Drug-Free America in which she smashes an entire kitchen in an effort to keep kids off heroin, is “rallying against the perfect portrayal of female stars in the media – insisting she is outraged over the manipulated images of celebrities which are fed to vulnerable young girls.”

Now that’s the kind of stuff I wanna hear from a young woman of such solid, Midwestern stock!

Cook has joined with Geena Davis and her Institute on Gender and Media, the Girl Scouts of the USA and The Creative Coalition to fight the Photoshopping and airbrushing of women’s bodies.  She’s urging young girls “not to measure themselves against the impossibly high standards of celebrities.”  (Easy for a beautiful celebrity to say, of course.  Harder for your average teen – and let’s face it – mom, to do.)

Cook says, “It breaks my heart to be part of an industry and part of a machine that really pushes out these images and propagates these really terrible standards that are false.  Nothing that you see is real, even if you look at what looks like a candid photo of someone, anything can be done.  It is false advertising and false advertising is a crime so why isn’t this a crime?  I’m just up in arms about it.”  (Quick – someone Photoshop a picture of Cook with 8 arms!)

All joking aside… this is of course a very worthy fight, and I’m happy to see such a well-spoken young woman waging it.  Cook certainly knows all about standards of beauty – she’s been modeling since age 10.  She admits to having had “food issues” as a teen, and is clearly trying to prevent other young girls from dealing with the same negative self-image.  I applaud Cook for standing up and speaking out for those of us with less-than-perfect bodies, blemishes and a few stray hairs.  (I’m not naming any names.)

Photo: Famecrawler

 Rachael Leigh Cook Thinks Photoshopping Womens Bodies is Harmful to Young Girls

Go Back To Strollerderby

3 Comments

Kids are growing up too fast these days. I don’t think a girl should be allowed to photoshop herself until she’s at least in high school.

bob commented on Oct 26 10 at 9:33 am

It’s just fantastic seeing pictures of someone looking beautiful on facebook and then running into them in person– sometimes it’s hard to tell they’re the same person! All pictures are deceiving nowadays. Few images are left un-”shopped”.

Kate commented on Oct 26 10 at 4:35 pm

Add your take:

Note: Babble is a supportive, diverse community. We encourage a range of opinions,
but any unduly hostile comments will be removed.


Comments are delayed up to 15 minutes

Most Popular on Facebook

Best of Babble.com


  • Lori Garcia
  • Joslyn Gray
  • Amber Doty
  • Julianna Miner
  • Monica Bielanko
  • Sierra Black
  • Meredith Carroll
  • Carolyn Castiglia
  • Sunny Chanel
  • Madeline Holler
  • Rebecca Odes
  • Danielle Smith
  • Danielle Sullivan
  • Katherine Stone
  • Disney Online Moms & Family Portfolio

    The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice. Click here for additional information. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Interest-Based Ads

    More in Strollerderby (50 of 11490 articles)