Jameela Jamil has had quite the week when it comes to calling things, or indeed people, out.
Recently, she put detox teas and the celebrities who promote them on blast, calling out Cardi B, Khloé Kardashian, and Iggy Azalea in particular.
Give us the discount codes to your nutritionists, personal chefs, personal trainers, airbrushers and plastic surgeons you bloody liars. https://t.co/2wes19cJdb
Calling them "laxative nonsense", she even posted a comedic video to Instagram trying to show the truth about taking detox products. The basic message? You'll shit yourself and that's about it.
But if you thought Jameela was going to stop there then you clearly don't know who we're talking about. Now, she's tackling the photoshopping, airbrushing, and filtering of celebrities in the media, and in particular the editing done to pictures of women.
Writing about why "airbrushing should be illegal", Jameela began: "I would like to put airbrushing in the bin. I want it gone. I want it out of here."
She continued to detail the reasons why she wants it "banned", stating that it's a lie and can lead to a decline in good mental health. "It exists to sell a fantasy to the consumer that this 'perfection' is indeed possible," she continued. "How is this ethical or even legal?"
Talking about the effect airbrushing can have on the subject, Jameela said that "if you see a digitally 'enhanced' picture of yourself, you run the risk of becoming acclimatised to that level of flawlessness and it makes it harder for you to accept your actual image".
She then drew on her own experiences of being photoshopped in pictures, claiming that editors have lightened her skin or changed her ethnicity altogether.
It's bad for the girls who are looking at the picture. But it's also bad for my mental health. It makes me dislike what I'm seeing in the mirror. It's a message from the editor to me that I am not good enough as I am.
After comparing photoshopping standards between male and female celebs, saying that men are allowed to age because it shows a "rugged attractiveness", she went on to claim that by filtering your own pictures, you're actually "legitimising the patriarchy's absurd aesthetic standards".
She concluded her rant: "[Airbrushing] is anti-feminist. It is ageist. It is fat-phobic. It looks weird. It looks wrong. It's robbing you of your time, money, comfort, integrity and self worth."
The debate then picked up on Twitter, with Jameela showing examples of what she means when she talks about the comparison between male and female celebrities.
An example of Photoshop being weaponised against women: This is how we portray men in their 50s on magazine covers and women in their 50s. Look at the difference. Men who age are sexy in HD. Women mostly just shouldn’t dare age. Men can celebrate the inevitable, we must fear it. https://t.co/XKykaZuiYf
"It does more harm than good ... This only ends badly," she continued, before adding that she bans photoshopping of her own pictures for the sake of her mental health.
Photoshop in advertising and magazines is so often used in ways that are ageist, ableist, fatphobic, racist and deeply sexist. It does more harm than good. We are making people almost allergic to the mere sight of normal human features. This only ends badly.
I haven’t banned all photoshop of myself because I’m being some sort of martyr for women, I’m doing it for MY mental health, so I don’t set myself up for a fall when I look in the mirror, after seeing a digitally enhanced “flawless” avatar. I don’t want the pressure or scrutiny.
However, it seems that after finding support while blasting detox teas, people have turned on Jameela, with many criticising her opinion.
Jameela Jamil’s “airbrushing should be illegal” essay reminds me so much of Alicia Keys’s “women should be makeup free” campaign. It’s like they forget they inhabit the very bodies upheld as ideal. https://t.co/zBHdP2YXIL
@BBC100women @jameelajamil I think Jameela needs to review her lefty dictionary. Airbrushing is not anti-feminist. It's software. it's a tool. Are high heels on shoes anti-feminist because it gives the illusion that women are taller than they really are? Since when did airbrushing remove political rights?
Jameela Jamil posting a picture where she looks luminously beautiful with the captain "say no to airbrushing .... I want to look like a person" is so extremely Tahani
Others took her opinion on board, but questioned how she'd delivered it.
Extreme airbrushing *is* harmful and it is a result of misogynistic,toxic beauty standards but there are better ways to discuss it without somehow weaponising it against women and being didactic about it & also illegal? Of all the things women go through..
airbrushing is bad, but can we clear the stage and give the body posi mic to the fat folks, disabled folks and dark-skinned black women who created the movement rather than firing off confetti cannons for a conventionally attractive actress saying things we've known for years, or
However, some leapt to Jameela's defence, praising her for speaking out about a prevalent issue.
@jameelajamil I wish I'd known about airbrushing when I was younger. I had no idea how much the pictures could be altered. It just wasn't talked about. What you're doing is amazing and it's helping so many. Keep going.
I followed @jameelajamil very recently and let me just say: SIS HAS BEEN GOING IN! RESPECT 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾