Prepare to Cringe at Photoshopped Pageant Pics

Another day, another potential Photoshop scandal. The official pageant portraits of the Miss World Philippines 2014 contestants have been released, which would’ve been a nice thing to wake up to if they weren’t so obscenely Photoshopped that the otherwise beautiful women in the pictures look like totally different people. Literally. Different People. I’m not talking about obviously tweaking a smile or sliming a nose here, folks. They resemble creepy porcelain dolls — or even Rose on Doctor Who when the Wire steals her face. Terrifying. It looks like these pictures have been hit with power-washer until almost all of their facial features were wiped away and only their oddly un-Photoshopped, non-whitened teeth and the question of the world’s interpretation of beauty remained.

When the photos were first posted to the photography blog, PetaPixel, people were understandably, ehh...let’s just say displeased with the overprocessing of the pics, saying that the photo editor “must’ve been bored or high” while working and another questioned their rather muddled idea of beauty. “Why can’t [they] show what real beauty is? Instead they try to ruin photos by editing them.” After all, these are beauty pageant finalists. Whether or not you agree with a contest based on someone's looks, there's no denying these girls are pretty much stunning.

While the obvious skin-lightening is more than a bit cringe-worthy, I’m hesitant to call this out as white-washing the contestants’ beauty. While the editing of the photos may look bizarre or just plain wrong to Americans, for different cultural preferences heavily softened features and idealized pale skin may just be the norm. Although I’m all “rah-rah everyone is beautiful,” I wouldn’t be so quick to judge another country’s beauty or cultural values. As Cosmopolitan.com pointed out, in that image series of Photoshopping in other countries, the picture came back from some countries with the edges extremely softened. Besides, don't we all edit ourselves every day with those IG filters? You can check out the rest of the photos for yourself over on Yahoo Philippines.

Images: Getty Images, Cosmopolitan/ Twitter, mikeeswenn24/Instagram, rivera.kayla/Instagram, insideshowbiz/Instagram