Ronda Rousey, did something more female celebrities need to do.
On Thursday, she accidentally posted the above retouched shot of her at “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” in which her arms were retouched to look slimmer. Could have been Rousey’s team or NBC, she doesn’t say, but she did get her hands on the actual picture, and published it right next to the real one with an apology.
Did you know that you can use technology to make women look like they’re much “better” than they are in real life? Who knew? Everyone. But this case of the missing arm cushion/muscle stands out.
Someone thought Ronda Rousey’s arms needed to look smaller and less muscular. If you buy into the What Women Should Look Like messages the media sends us, then they’re probably right about this. (Apparently there’s no better model of power than a woman without her muscles.) A good rule of thumb when you’re looking at Instagram is to assume it’s all altered to save you from the scary image of female strength. Our own pro natural beauty warrior, Iskra Lawrence has spoken with fair and balance about the dangers of overly retouched fashion photos before.
But isn’t it odd that someone thought they could sneak this job by her? An MMA fighter? Well, they did for a second, because she posted it without noticing. (The differences are subtle, as her arms are the only alarming “tune-up” job.) It all goes to show you, just because you’re an undefeated (in spirit,) champ, doesn’t mean you won’t have to wake up and realize someone hacked your arms off.
More women need to do what Rousey has done when they find that their body parts have gone missing in a caper. They need to do it for transparency’s sake, something you don’t find when you’re looking at famous women because lighting and boob tape and everything.
When she revealed her mistake, which was really someone else’s mistake, she said:
“I have to make an apology to everyone,” which is the beginning of loads of great toasts from women with the groom, not of someone who has fallen victim to tired beauty standards. “I was sent a picture to share on social for Fallon that was altered without me knowing to make my arms look smaller. I won’t say by who — I know it was done with severely misplaced positive intentions — but this goes against everything I believe and I am extremely proud of every inch of my body. And I can assure you all it will never happen again. I could not be more appalled and hope you all forgive me.”
The real arms ride again though. Rousey justifiably lost favor with peeps who would have been all about her body positivity when she shed light on her transphobic sounding views. But this post IS a model of what to do to show everyone that no, there’s nothing wrong with my arms. More famous women need to expose this kind of trickery themselves before anyone else does because that’s truly taking your bod and your armpits back from the bad guys.
When Vogue Photoshopped a prizewinning horse to have more bones, it was our favorite scandal, but take a look back at some of the worst.
Your move Bey.
