Entertainment

'PLL' Star Hates the Show's New Poster

by Christine DiStasio

Dec. 12, 2013

Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images

Ashley Benson is not happy that you Photoshopped her and she's not afraid to let you know it. Wednesday night, the Spring Breakers star took to her Instagram account to voice her issues with a heavily edited poster that might be a promo for the return of ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars in January 2014. The poster features Benson and PLL 's three other stars — Lucy Hale, Troian Bellisario, and Shay Mitchell — dressed in red and looking angelically (and unrealistically) flawless. So, instead of letting the photo go without comment, Benson chose to post the photo on her Instagram account and call out the excessive editing which really makes us want to give her a high five.

It's clear that Benson (and co-star Bellisario who posted the same photo with a similar caption shortly after) knows exactly who her show's biggest audience is and who her fans are — young girls. And making a harsh public statement about Photoshopping away all of her flaws, making her look unattractive and asking fans to please not aspire to look like ridiculously edited photos, is exactly what we need to hear. It's great to see someone finally saying something about the horrors of Photoshop, especially someone with a huge social media following and an extremely popular show with a massive, devoted fan base. (Since no one felt the need to complain about Kerry Washington's unfortunate Lucky magazine cover.) And frankly, a welcomed breath of fresh air.

Here are the two images Benson posted to her Instagram yesterday evening:

The actress tagged her costars in the photo and captioned it with, "Saw this floating around....hope it's not the poster. Our faces in this were from 4 years ago.....and we all look ridiculous. Way too much photo shop. We all have flaws. No one looks like this. It's not attractive."

An hour later, Benson posted this all-text photo message to her fans that expressed their support and praised her for speaking out against the ridiculous Photoshopping in the earlier photo and captioned it, "Big kiss to all of you." Seriously, when can we give this girl a double high five?

Early Thursday morning, Bellisario posted the first photo on her own account with the caption, "Wow @itsashbenzo I couldn't agree more. Very cool concept as always. But aren't we attractive enough women as we are? Why can't we just look like us. Once." And honestly, why can't they? They are definitely attractive enough women and they deserve to feel like their good looks are enough — because they really are.

Could this be the new wave that started with Jennifer Lawrence calling out her fat-shaming haters? Will young Hollywood and their huge social media presence be able to finally put these ridiculous beauty standards and Photoshop to rest? It looks like it and we hope so. If not, we can at least be thankful for these young women speaking up when they know they're dealing with something absurd.

Images: AshleyBenson/Instagram