The Wall Street Journal has a take on Karoline Leavitt’s lip injection marks.
The Murdoch-owned paper ran an opinion piece in defense of the White House Press Secretary’s savagely exposed attempts “to accentuate her beauty” on Tuesday.
“The hyperfeminine bombshell look is an obvious model for conservatives to follow, given its association both with the confidence of the 1950s, and with the South,” wrote columnist Louise Perry. “A more interesting question is why the anti-MAGA crowd rejects this look with such vehemence.”
The rest of the piece, titled “Don’t Hate Karoline Leavitt Because She’s Beautiful,” argues that Leavitt’s lips shouldn’t attract “such derision from the left,” as Perry questions, “Are long blond hair and pouty lips really so bad?”
Leavitt became a target of ridicule following Vanity Fair’s two-part publication of Christopher Anderson’s portraits of the members of Trump’s administration, photographed in various unflattering poses. Leavitt’s portrait in particular has drawn much attention, as Anderson decided not to edit marks on her lips that reveal multiple lip filler injections.
Detailed close-ups of his subjects have been a regular part of Anderson’s work long before Trump’s second administration—but Leavitt’s portrait prompted scrutiny from the right, some of whom are calling the Vanity Fair profile a hit piece.
Leavitt has neglected to comment on the fiasco over her lips, opting instead to attack the piece overall in an interview with CNN.
“This is, unfortunately, another example of disingenuous reporting,” Leavitt told the network, as she accused Vanity Fair of “pushing this false narrative of chaos and confusion that the reporter was clearly trying to push.”
Despite the predictable pushback on the publication’s reporting about the Trump administration’s dysfunctional dynamics, a top-discussed aspect of the piece remains the blemishes on Leavitt’s lips. Anderson said he did nothing unusual in how he approached the photos, however.
“I didn’t put the injection sites on her,” he told The Washington Post when asked about Leavitt’s portrait. “People seem to be shocked that I didn’t use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks. I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch out those things.”
In Leavitt’s defense on Tuesday, Perry argued that the issue is not with Anderson, but with the left’s criticism of the “MAGA aesthetic.”
The columnist wrote, “Women who vote for Democrats also pay for plenty of cosmetic procedures,” and the left is no better for its “West Valley Girl uniform” of “a plain cropped T-shirt, straight blue jeans, and sneakers.” Even “the anti-MAGA aesthetic also requires considerable effort, even if the results don’t look as aggressively feminine,” she added.
Leavitt is just doing her job by keeping up her appearance, Perry concluded.
“There is no end of research indicating that beauty is socially and professionally advantageous, particularly for women. And emphasizing one’s femininity is a classic way of emphasizing one’s beauty. Why pass up the chance to look as good as possible?”
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