One thing that’s been puzzling me a bit is that the fillers and surgery "look" many female (and some male) actresses, celebrities and wealthy people have is not all that attractive. The stretched, botoxed skin and weirdly plumped lips full of fillers almost seems to be a required look, but it’s a weird, almost alien look. Yet that is what they are all going for. Objectively it’s really not all that attractive vs having a few wrinkles. I was with a group of 40-60 something women the other day who had little to no (obvious) work and they were fairly good looking.
What’s going on here? Is it a peer thing where they all want to look like their buddies? Is it because they are all kind of thin and have no facial fat? Is it to combat all the suntans, cigarettes and drugs they have indulged in over the years? How did this oddball look become the mature beauty standard for many older wealthy women and celebrities?
Partly it’s a peer thing, and partly that since that’s what’s on the mags it feeds upon itself.
Yesterday I saw an ad which combined: on the eyes, the kind of misty effect that was so fashionable back in the '80s, where everything seemed to be viewed through a dewy glass. An almost-erased nose. Lips that were ridiculously big and not so much a Cupid’s bow as a Cupid’s ballista. My own remark to my relatives was “she’s supposed to look like a pretty girl and instead she looks like a badly-CGId alien”.
Did you hear/see the backlash Carrie Fisher received for daring to age when the new Star Wars came out? For some reason it is much more acceptable to look like you are one step out of the Uncanny Valley then to look old.
I am not sure that everyone is going for the look that they are getting.
It might be, in some cases, that they chat with a girlfriend that they know is their age and the friend looks great, even better than them. The girlfriend says she gets a little botox and had her eyes done. The person in question - who has a different face, different skin and different bones - goes to a different doctor and says she wants botox and eyes. She might not need botox, she might not need eyes. But the doctor agrees to it anyway. And maybe the doctor sells her on something more. Maybe the doctor isn’t as good as the friend’s doctor and maybe the doctor isn’t as ethical and maybe the doctor is an awesome salesman.
I think they may come out of the surgeries/procedures actually looking good, but things shift and change and ruin what may have been done. I think sometimes they over-correct. I think they get told they look good by a team of “emperor’s new clothes” people. I also don’t think they are sitting around crying about how they look. I think many people get addicted to plastic surgery and have no idea they look weird. I think that yes they do feel they look hot.
And meanwhile, their friends who had the botox and the eyes still look pretty good and haven’t had anything more done and have aged perfectly well around their work, and none of them are in magazines looking crazy because you can’t even tell they had anything done.
Anyway that’s my take. Not everyone who has had surgery is trying to look like that, we only notice the outliers, and people who do end up looking like that are a bit insane to have gotten to that point.
The comments are somewhat justified. Both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher do not just look their age, they look older and beat up. Hamill and Fisher have been massive and chronic smokers most of their lives and it shows. Their faces are like catchers mitts under the makeup. There are 60 year old homeless people with better skin than Hamill and Fisher.
How in the world are these comments justified? This is what they look like at 64 and 59. The life they lived was the life they lived and that is the face they now own. What should they do? Backfill their faces so they look better?
This is exactly the attitude that makes everyone who can afford it stuff their faces with plastic.
That’s my take on it. If everyone you associate with in your circle starts having treatements and looking like this, you start to think it’s normal and even expected that you do that same.
I don’t think she looks that much older than her age. For Hollywood, sure. But normal people? She does NOT look 75+ at all. She looks exactly what she is. A well worn 59 year old (60 next month). Mark Hamill looks good for almost 65-- if he were a regular human.
As I said, this attitude is why those who can afford it stretch out their faces once age starts decorating them. A normal-looking 59 year old woman is characterized as looking older than 75 because everybody remembers when she was a hot twenty-something in a metal bikini.
Check out the GIS above. Note the difference between those whose livelihood depends on being a public figure and those who are “regular” people. Look very, very closely and you will see why, as I have already said, those who can afford it ruin their faces when they start aging.
My daughter and I were just discussing this while watching some news overview of an award show. But as bad as the women look the men are just as bad. I didn’t even recognize John Travolta. His skin looked so pulled back and shiny and his face did have that lizard look to it. It looks sculpted, and it looks like his hair should be pulled back tight but it’s not.
Never heard a word about it. I suppose it’s one of those things you notice if you look for it. I thought she looked fine. Didn’t need to see her in a bikini the first time.
The cameras also tend to catch people at their worst. I’ve noticed some male celebrities that get their foreheads pulled tight look weird for about a year and then things start to look pretty good. The ones with the problem never seem to let the skin settle back and just keep getting more and more.
So how do you explain people like Sigourney Weaver? She’s 66, rich and a celebrity.
Sigourney Weaver is 7 years older than Carrie Fisher and clearly Sigourney Weaver - Wikipedia hasn’t had any work done other than her neck, but looks much younger in comparison. Maintaining a steady healthy weight and lifestyle makes a world of difference.
And your GIS above? OMG. I’m a couple of years away from 60. I literally would shoot myself if I looked like most of those “average women”. I don’t “stuff my face with plastic”. I’m in great shape, eat right, have perfect teeth and take care of myself. According to your photos, I should start chewin’ tobaccy, gain 50 lbs, dress from the Wal-Mart clearance rack, cut my own hair, forget that Sephora exists, move to the Ozarks and find a cousin to marry.
This attitude–that a woman should stay young and attractive as long as possible and at all costs, and that failing to do so represents a moral failing on her part, basically being sinful and shameful–is exactly what leads women to go for extreme cosmetic surgery.
