Riverdale Stars Call Out Cosmopolitan Philippines’ Photoshop

Celebrities have been subject to Photoshop since the graphics-editing platform was released, but 21 year-old Riverdale star Lili Reinhart was not having it this International Women’s Day. She and her co-star, Camila Mendes, exposed Cosmopolitan Philippines for slimming their waists for the covers of the February issue. Reinhart called out this branch of Cosmopolitan on their Instagram stories, showing their followers side-by-side profiles of the original images and their slimmed versions in both the U.S. and Philippines magazines. 

With women all over the globe being recognized on this day of solidarity, March 8th, Reinheart and Mendes took to opportunity to talk about self-love and the audacity of the publication to trim their waists without their consent to their “standards”.

@Cosmopolitan_Philippines has since deleted their posts of both Mendes and Reinhart. On March 8th, they made a post for International Women’s Day with the caption “Happy #InternationalWomensDay! Let the women in your life know how much you love and appreciate them”, and has turned off the option to comment on all of their posts in March. They made no official statement or apology on their Instagram page, and have not posted any photos since March 8th, whereas @Cosmopolitan has posted over 60 times since March 1st.

Reinhart wrote on her Instagram story that she was furious that the magazine photoshopped her and her co-star’s waists. Neither she nor Mendes posted a photo on International Women’s Day, instead utilizing their Instagram stories to expose the magazine for their unrealistic beauty standards.

She wrote that to the Philippines branch of the magazine on her Instagram story, “It’s sad that you felt our bodies needed to be slimmed down.” She later went on to encourage celebrities to “stop photoshopping their waists/noses/arms/legs in their photos – It’s only encouraging an unrealistic body image. It’s adding to the problem.”

This is certainly not the first case of this sort. As social media sites like Instagram continue to grow in popularity, people are comparing themselves to others more and more frequently and are globally subjected to lower self-esteem. An article on Better Health writes that self-esteem and media are closely related. “The way that men and women look in the media creates an unrealistic image of what we think we should look like. The problem is that only around 5 percent of society looks like the images that are portrayed in the media. That leaves anyone from the 95 percent that suffers from low self-esteem and low confidence feeling like they don’t measure up,” which is one of the major problems Reinheart was addressing in her story.

While media continues to morph our idea of what people “should” look like, celebrities like Reinhart and Mendes are among many who advocate for Photoshop-free images in order to exterminate the problem. Reinheart and Mendes have a combined number of almost thirteen million followers, so their takes on such issues are heavily projected and influential.

Reinhart ended by thanking Cosmopolitan for keeping their waists as they are on the cover of the main branch of the magazine, keeping them original. “Cami and I are f–king beautiful. As is.” She wrote in her story, addressing the Philippines branch. “And you can’t ‘fix’ us.”

Both star on the TV show Riverdale produced by the CW, with its first season the 6th popular on the network. Both often appear in magazines and do photoshoots, advocating for natural looks rather than promoting unrealistic standards. The show airs at 8/7pm central on the CW channel.

Lead Image courtesy of Bleeding Cool

• Cosmopolitan
• photoshop
• river dale