Jamie Lee Curtis: Before & After Pics

But not anymore. In an age when divas often use their clout to nix unflattering photos in magazines, Curtis has demanded the opposite: Glam Jamie will pose only if Real Jamie gets equal time.

Quite a few years ago now, there was a great spot shown often during kids' cartoons (I forget whether it was Saturday morning, or Nicholodeon, or what), which showed an average-looking young girl (about 13-14, maybe) looking wistfully at a magazine glamour photo she had clipped and taped to her mirror. She sighed and said to the model in the photo, "I'll never look like you..."

A voice from behind her said, "I wouldn't be too sure..." The girl turns around and sees a pleasant-but-not-stunning looking mid-20's woman speaking. "Who are you?", asks the girl. "I'm her", says the woman, pointing to the glamour photo.

The girl looks at the perfect creature in the photo, then at the ordinary woman, and says, "no way!".

Then in the course of the next 30 seconds, they show the woman being heavily made up, primped, hair styled, taped and squeezed, dressed in fancy clothes, carefully posed and lighted, photographed through a filter, and then the photo retouched to produce the artificially flawless glamour shot.

Then the woman says, "This is the real me -- that [pointing at the glamour photo].. just an illusion".

I thought it was a nice way to reassure kids (and adults too, for that matter) that no one actually looks as good as the magazine photos and movie scenes. No one should feel bad about looking "normal". Even the "stars" look pretty ordinary in person (or worse -- ever see some of the "without their makeup" candid celebrity photos?) I've also seen three Playboy centerfolds in person, and they were definitely *not* as jaw-dropping in real life as they were in their magazine photos. They looked surprisingly "girl next door", actually, and they wouldn't have turned heads walking down a street.

It's good to see JLC making the same point, and being so honest about it.

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