'I never felt bullied into anything' Lena Dunham defends her Photoshopped Vogue cover and spread

Lena Dunham has responded to the controversy over her photoshopped Vogue fashion spread and cover

Dunham says she's 'confused' by all the fuss and says having a woman on the cover of Vogue who is not a typical model-type is a positive thing

Blog Jezebel offered a $10,000 bounty for the unretouched images

After they were published, many detractors labeled the move 'mean' and 'anti-feminist'

Dunham tweeted that the outcry was 'too ridiculous' to engage with

Lena Dunham has spoken out about the fuss surrounding the photoshopping of her much-anticipated Vogue cover and photo-shoot, saying she doesn't understand the controversy.



The extent of the photoshopping was revealed by Jezebel, the women's blog owned by Gawker Media, which offered a $10,000 bounty for the unretouched pictures.



The writer and star of HBO’s Girls told Slate that the controversy 'confuses me a little.'



Cover girl: Dunham says she is pleased with the results of her photo-shoot with Vogue

'I understand that for people there is a contradiction between what I do and being on the cover of Vogue; but frankly I really don’t know what the photoshopping situation is, I can’t look at myself really objectively in that way,' Dunham, 27, told Slate.

'I know that I felt really like Vogue supported me and wanted to put a depiction of me on the cover. I never felt bullied into anything; I felt really happy because they dressed me and styled me in a way that really reflects who I am. And I felt that was very lucky and that all the editors understood my persona, my creativity and who I am.



'I haven’t been keeping track of all the reactions, but I know some people have been very angry about the cover and that confuses me a little. I don’t understand why, Photoshop or no, having a woman who is different than the typical Vogue cover girl, could be a bad thing,' she said.



Editor of Jezebel Jessica Coen said that it is the very fact that Vogue had chosen to manipulate someone like Dunham's image that the magazine should be taken to task.



'This is what Vogue does - and yes, we already know in general what all of these magazines do - but now, on its cover, Vogue has a woman who rightfully declares that her appearance, with all of its perceived imperfections, shouldn't be hidden and doesn't need any fixing,' she wrote.



Bounty: Jezebel paid $10,000 for the unretouched versions of Lena Dunham's Vogue photos in a move some are labeling anti-feminist and mean

The pre-Photoshop images, acquired by Jezebel today, show how the Girls creator's jawline has been narrowed, her waistline slimmed and even smile lines removed.



An image of the 27-year-old star seated on the edge of a bathtub in a Dolce & Gabbana dress demonstrates these changes to greatest effect.



An annotated gif points out that Dunham's hips have been pulled in, her jawline slimmed, defined and raised.



The bags under her eyes have been removed and the smile line on the right-hand-side of her face has been erased entirely.



The whole image is noticeably brighter, and Dunham's skin has been smoothed.



'Fantasy': Despite Dunham being an positive body image role model, she says she doesn't have a problem with her retouched Vogue images

'A fashion magazine is like a beautiful fantasy. Vogue isn’t the place that we go to look at realistic women, Vogue is the place that we go to look at beautiful clothes and fancy places and escapism and so I feel like if the story reflects me and I happen to be wearing a beautiful Prada dress and surrounded by beautiful men and dogs, what’s the problem? If they want to see what I really look like go watch the show that I make every single week,' Dunham told Slate France.



Coen stands by Jezebel’s choice to publish the unretouched pictures of Dunham.



'Accusations that we’re shaming Lena are fueled by the assumption that there’s even something to shame her about,' she wrote in an email to Speakeasy.

Way cooler when people do things out of pure blind spite than out of faux altruism — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) January 17, 2014

Response: Dunham has made her feelings on the matter very clear

Girl, uncovered: Dunham says if anyone wants to see what she looks like when not in a Vogue fashion spread they need only watch her show in which she regularly goes semi-naked, 'Girls'

'The underlying message of these critiques is that there’s something here to "fix" and Vogue should take care of the problem. There’s never any outcry when unretouched images of a supermodel surface online.'



Others disagree, labelling Jezebel 'mean girls' who are using feminism as an excuse to shame Dunham.



'This is total mean-girl s*** masquerading as feminism,' tweeted screenwriter Diablo Cody. 'I'm disgusted.'

Jezebel paid $10,000 to get unedited photos of Lena Dunham, earning the award for most counterproductive act feminism has ever seen. — Melissa Stetten (@MelissaStetten) January 17, 2014





TV critic for the New Yorker Emily Nussbaum wrote, 'If Dunham wanted to release her own retouched photos, that might be interesting. Asking for a bounty on them? GROSS.'



Dunham weighed in with a tweet last night - a reply to Nussbaum.

