The Cast Of ‘Girls’ Goes Photoshop-Free For Fashion Shoot

via Twitter

This February’s Glamour magazine cover is the first to feature all four female leads on HBO’s Girls. But it’s also important for another major reason: all four women refused to be Photoshopped. This cover is another example of Lena Dunham’s commitment to presenting realistic female body images in the media, so she tanked the magazine for supporting it.

Dunham, who shares the Glamour cover with co-stars Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet, and Jemima Kirke, took to her Instagram to speak out about the photo’s importance. “Throughout my teens I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was f***ing funny looking. Potbelly, rabbit teeth, knock knees — I could never seem to get it right and it haunted my every move,” she writes. “I posed as the sassy confident one, secretly horrified and hurt by careless comments and hostility. Let’s get something straight: I didn’t hate what I looked like — I hated the culture that was telling me to hate it.”

Dunham used the photo as an opportunity to strike back at those who have disparaged her looks throughout her career. “Well, today this body is on the cover of a magazine that millions of women will read, without Photoshop, my thigh on full imperfect display,” she explained. She then thanked Glamour for the opportunity to show her thighs to the world. “Thank you to the women in Hollywood (and on Instagram!) leading the way, inspiring and normalizing the female form in EVERY form, and thank you to @glamourmag for letting my cellulite do the damn thing on newsstands everywhere today.”