An unedited picture of Khloé Kardashian was recently circulating on several social media platforms, which caused the 36-year-old model and her family to take legal action to demand its removal.
The youngest Kardashian sister has faced a great deal of backlash from the response to this picture, but one would be remiss to criticize her without acknowledging that she has faced years of criticism and comparison to her sisters when it comes to her body. The entire Kardashian-Jenner family is constantly in the spotlight, and Khloé has openly spoken about personal issues surrounding acceptance of her own body. She has faced the media claiming she has a different father than her two elder sisters due to their differing body types and has been relentlessly ridiculed in tabloids as their reality show gained traction.
However, we should also acknowledge that the Kardashian-Jenner sisters create the beauty standard for young women. Kim popularized (and appropriated) the “slim thick” body type, and that has become the standard for women. Kylie’s lip kits introduced a whole new aspect into the cosmetic industry and she became notorious for her lip fillers that many women have strove to replicate. Many of the sisters are critiqued for presenting as “racially ambiguous,” and while the controversy of their appearances remains prevalent, they are viewed as the blueprint nonetheless.
It is absolutely understandable that Khloé, or any other celebrity for that matter, is scared of what the media will say about a photo that was not up to their personal standards, especially after the horrible things said to her in the past. However, the Kardashian-Jenner sisters know the position they hold, and the acceptance of the picture would have changed the game. Of course, all celebrities heavily airbrush and edit their photos, so it is difficult to stop when knowing that everyone else will look more conventionally attractive with those tools at their disposal. The case of the Kardashian-Jenners is a bit different though. When holding a huge portion of influence over the beauty community, others will inevitably follow suit with their actions. After all, that seems to be the case for everything else they do, so the idea of the women revolutionizing the culture of social media does not seem to be an outlandish idea.
Unfortunately, Khloé missed the perfect opportunity to take a step to rewrite the rules for women. Every person has a right to not feel their absolute best in every picture taken of them, but the response exhibited by the Kardashian family over a lack of airbrushing suggests that she, and every other person watching her reaction, is only beautiful when able to uphold unrealistic standards.
Good American, Khloé’s clothing label, claims it is “Representing Body Acceptance.” That acceptance needs to filter into the actions of women in positions of high media exposure rather than a statement made for profitability.
Khloé looked beautiful in the picture she so desperately wants hidden, but made other women feel less than beautiful in the process.