A retouched photo worth a thousand words

It's hard to believe that Jennifer Lawrence needs help in the beauty department, but one magazine gave her some anyway.

A controversial GIF of the actress revealing how fashion magazine Flare airbrushed her 2011 cover has found new life on the Internet after an author on the website Upworthy expressed outrage at what she says is a gratuitous hack job.

It appears the magazine elongated Lawrence's body, slimming her waist, thighs, and arms; boosted her cleavage; chiseled her cheekbones; and overly bronzed her skin tone. The Internet instantly exploded with reaction. "I think the most ridiculous thing is they photoshopped her fingers. What in the world was wrong with them in the first place?" wrote one commenter. Another tweeted: "This is one GIF worth sharing. Insane how much retouching is done on a beautiful 23 year old."

It's a curious move given how outspoken Lawrence has been about the pursuit of perfection in Hollywood. In November during a live interview at Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, Lawrence responded to an audience question, asking how young girls can deal with the pressure to look perfect, by saying, "The world has a certain ideal – we see this airbrushed perfect model image … you just have to look past it. You look how you look and be comfortable. What are you gonna do, be hungry every single day to make other people happy? That's just dumb." That same month, during an interview with the BBC, Lawrence spoke of the pressure to be thin in Hollywood: "We have the ability to control this image that young girls are going to be seeing [in "The Hunger Games"] ... girls see enough of this body that they will never be able to obtain. It's an amazing opportunity to rid ourselves of that in this industry."