The latest cover of Newsweek magazine, which features a photograph of Sarah Palin, is causing controversy: on an October 8th episode of Fox's American Newsroom, Andrea Tantorus, a Republican media consultant, argued to host, Megyn Kelly, that the photograph "is a clear slap in the face to Sarah Palin." And why is it a veritable slap in the face? Precisely because the photograph does absolutely nothing to the Republican vice presidential candidate's visage.

Confused? Let me put it another way. As the Republican party's most (in)famous celebrity in the current run for the White House, Tantorus believes that Palin's photograph should be retouched like that of any other celebrity who appears in a magazine, or on its cover. The reason? Palin's unenhanced picture:

... highlights every imperfection that every human being has...we're

talking unwanted facial hair, pores, wrinkles...This is a slap in the face and the biggest reason it's a slap, Megyn, is because the title [accompanying the photograph] says, 'She's one of the folks.' And in parentheses it says, 'And that's the problem.'

To drive her point home, Tantorus later suggests that Palin's un-retouched photograph is a slap in the face to the general female public as well: "Any woman who sees this cover would be shocked and horrified."

Wait a second. Newsweek's cover story on Sarah Palin criticizes her folksy discourse and public persona as "mindless populism"--recall Palin's repeated use of the term "hockey mom," and coining of the expression "Joe six-pack." Since Palin continues to frame herself as the everyday, middle American, doesn't the "realness"--i.e., the visibility of her facial hair, pores, and wrinkles--affirm her manufactured personality? If so, then why does Tantorus think that the title for Newsweek's cover story-- "She's one of the folks. (And that's the problem)" --is a bigger slap in face for Palin? Even Tantorus admits that Palin's photo displays "imperfections that every human being has."

More to the point, the classification of women's facial hair, pores and wrinkles as "unwanted" and as "imperfections" is an old marketing trick; it helps sell billions of dollars of cosmetics to women around the world. It's also decidedly anti-feminist because it buttresses an oppressive standard that states women should be plucked, powdered, and even pumped full of Botox, before they show their faces in public.

Anchor Megyn Kelly's commentary during the segment on Newsweek's cover supports this argument:

...I don't think you get a lot of debate from the folks that Governor Palin is a beautiful woman. But, no matter who the beautiful woman is, when they put you up close and personal on a magazine--even the most gorgeous super models in the world--they retouch you to get rid of the normal flaws that every human being has. That's what they do in the magazine business. They didn't do it for Governor Palin.

Fortunately, Julia Piscitelli, of American University, offered some progressive insights during the same segment:

And frankly, you know, get a close up. So we all haven't waxed our upper lip every once and a while. It's just, this is reality and there have been very unflattering covers of Mark Warner, Hillary Clinton, of John McCain, and there have been some of Barack Obama also. It's reality. And I think saying, demanding that political figures get retouching like super models do on the covers of news magazines is going a little far. I mean, let's, what's wrong with showing women they way they actually look? Particularly a woman as beautiful as Sarah Palin.

While Piscitelli should be lauded for bolstering the idea that upper lip hair is a normal physiological feature of the human body, and that women should be presented in media as they look in everyday life, some of her other comments display problematic reasoning: that is, Piscitelli tempers the "realistic" photograph of Palin with Palin's apparent beauty. As she further states: "Well, I, I really have to say, this woman is beautiful. She was a beauty queen. She looks beautiful on this cover. What I notice about her is her beautiful brown eyes." Similar to the aforementioned oppressive standard, Piscitelli's comments reveal that the acceptance of a woman's presence in the public sphere hinges on her beauty.

And, writ large, the issues simmering in the discussion between Tantorus, Kelly and Piscitelli show us that there is an innate volatility in the visibility of women, particularly popular women on the world stage. This volatility raises several troubling questions: How can a woman look like an everyman without being displeasing? How can a celebrity give the impression of a celebrity while convincing the common person she is one of them? How can a woman be seen without discussion of her appearance, and whether or not she is beautiful? And, how can women, in general, escape the cultural demand to be retouched?

What is most insidious about the controversy over Palin's picture on the front of Newsweek is that it reveals retouching is not just a metaphorical cultural demand, but also a folksy notion of the way women should mediate themselves.