It’s not exactly a secret at this point. Magazines give us airbrushed Hanson. They do such an incredibly thorough job of it, they even occasionally take away things that were intended to stay there, like the mole under Taylor’s lip. Every zit, blemish and pockmark is digitally done away with and presto, we have three perfect teenaged boys with flawless skin.

Welcome to our celebrity-obsessed culture, where every person paraded in front of a camera has to be perfect to the point that they defy the laws of nature, time and logic. Welcome to a world where our need for absolute escapism over-rides our need for the truth. In searching for a Face, we’ve abandoned the quest for personality, for something deeper than pretty eyes and nice muscle tone.

And of course, in their typical, astonishing way, Hanson has picked up the box of our collective expectation and dumped it ceremoniously on our heads.

In MOE 7, we are given the real Hanson. In three successive pictures, the boys are photographed as they are, the camera inches from their noses. And pimples are only the beginning. We see birthmarks, pores, razor stubble, chicken pox scars. The list goes on. Something in us should be appalled. We’re programmed to think so from the time we’re two, when we see Maria romping around Sesamie Street wearing enough bass make-up and eyeliner to supply the national touring company of Phantom for a week. When we see Britney Spears tanned the color of boot leather in February. When Chris Kirkpatrick gets an image overhaul to stop people from calling him "The Ugly One." We’re trained to think that real, human imperfection, our own included, somehow makes us bad.

A magazine would never publish those pictures. To think of People or Entertainment Weekly publishing a picture of Taylor where his eyes are almost completely obscured, where he’s scowling and messy-haired and pimply, is ludicrous. Because wait a minute, isn’t he the pretty one? The Heart Throb? The Star? If anything, his picture is probably the least flattering of the three. And they put it in MOE. Taking up a full page. The Isaac and Zac pictures, imperfections aside, are still kinder to their subjects than the Taylor picture. Intended or not, there’s a message there, about beauty and fame who we put on what pedestal for what reason.

How can we not see these pictures as beautiful? They’re not beautiful despite the pimples. They’re beautiful because of the pimples, because fame and millions of fans and gold records and dollars aside, they’re real people. With real pimples. Just like us. And if we can see something as superficial as their faces in that light, we should be able to see their music in it too.

If that which is beautiful is that which makes us real, Hanson is telling us one thing. Look closer.