Im seeing some reverse whining and pissing and moaning about the reaction to Renée Zellwegers new face: Leave her alone! Well, one of the worst ways to avoid public comment is to be a movie star, so theres that. Go be a cat lady or a regular person or something if you dont want to be a subject of conversation. But if youre going to be a movie star, guess what? Youre the subject of conversation – especially when you do something as truly bizarre and noteworthy, which ordinary people dont do, as to completely surgically change your face, familiar to millions and millions of people, into a complete strangers whom no one has ever seen before. Shes publicly stated she embraces the commentary, so all the leave her alone whiners can shut up. Did she do this thing to her face to look younger? (I doubt it; she looks older, and it was clearly not the point.) Because of some medical issue with her eyes? (Remote possibility, so remote as to be almost negligible.) Because she hated her face? (My moneys on that; she completely erased absolutely every familiar feature and has a completely 100% new unrecognizable face.) Shaming us Joe Q. Publics who comment on the drastic plastic surgery indulged in by our movie stars and public figures is no more meritorious than shaming those doing the drastic plastic surgery. Personally, I find these plastic surgery addicts, self-haters and pathological age-and-time-denier self-cutters to be mentally ill, and you can put Joan Rivers at the top of the list; I was absolutely horrified at that rubber mask she called her face on the last round. But proclaiming this self-cutting and life-hating as a benign, lovely form of self-expression is far more of a hypocrisy than those screaming that the public is hypocritical for even noticing it. Its an appalling message to ordinary women (AND MEN) who, throughout our media history, totally naturally have looked up to movie stars and public figures, far more appalling than the hypocritically screamed-about Photoshopping of models to look unnaturally thin. Katherine Hepburn, everyone; Bette Davis; Judy Garland. Everyone has their own way of either adapting their appearance, or adapting TO their appearance. Self-savaging is not admirable, it is not healthy, its a rotten message to send to ones public, if youre lucky enough to have one, and it is eminently worthy of comment and discussion. I can speak as one who somewhat dramatically changed my appearance with double-jaw surgery at age 31. I had major medical reasons to do so, but the cosmetic issue wasnt far from my mind either. If I had been a major star, and had had cheekbone implants, a new nose, four hundred new teeth, new hair, new chin, new neck, new ears, new eyes, and God knows what else, I would have been as happy to discuss it as I was the jaw thing, and I would have been cognizant that as a public figure, I could expect to be the subject of commentary. And if some (as I do) find facial cutting to be a sign of mental dislocation, and a societal negative, I could expect that commentary as well. I once went to a very high-society party on the East Side -- Dominick Dunne, Norman Mailer, all kinds of fancy people. Every woman there was at least 75, and every last one of them had blonde hair running three feet down their back, projectile fake asses, projectile fake missile tits, rubber flapping lips, nine-inch eyelids, four-inch projectile cheekbones, chopped ears, liposuctioned fake midsections, and 5-inch heels and miniskirts and Spandex skin-tight whatevers half-way up their reproductive organs. Ive never been so grossed-out in my life. This awfulness is not something to celebrate; this is not charming, chacun-a-son-gout self-expression. This is psychological self-hatred and dislocation. And no, you cant blame society and its expectations for this kind of self-destruction. Thats on you, ladies (and the men who do the male equivalent). Grow up. Every last one of them looked not younger than they were, but rather, as James Hilton wrote in LOST HORIZON, most old – the most old of anyone Ive ever seen.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 08:55:41 +0000
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