# Would you rather display a bad facial deformity, or hide your face?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [February 12, 2011, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093 "2011-02-12T02:08:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/21 "2011-02-13T04:31:13Z")
> [@Essured](#):
>
> Why should he have to cover up and be hidden. People should just deal with their own discomfort and move along
Yes, but the question is about the other side–the comfort _of_ the disfigured or deformed. The reactions of others may be significant for how their contribute to the image of the person, by which I do not mean appearance.
I think of the depiction of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the movie _Kingdom of Heaven_. The Leper King. Ridley Scott and William Monahan chose to show [Baldwin wearing a metal mask](http://www.allthingsbeautiful.com/all_things_beautiful/images/kingbaldwinivinjerusalem.jpg) in almost all scenes, though in actual history he did not. I think it made for many powerful symbolic contrasts. The expression in his voice against the rigidity of the metal. His life’s fragility against the mask’s permanence. A man of courage and conviction, holding up public ideals meant to be greater and longer-lasting than himself. And of course it allowed those in the audience who might otherwise have shuddered and turned away to develop a sense of these important qualities of the man, before the painful late scene when the mask is removed. If they shuddered then, I imagine they felt ashamed for it.
---
### Author:  [@Essured](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Essured)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/22 "2011-02-13T05:00:54Z")
Yeah, I know. It just seems to me that many people think the disfigured person should hide. Or more precisely, should WANT to hide. For their own comfort, of course. I just find that odd, that people would expect them to want to hide, rather than expect them to want to live as normally as possible.
It’s like when people say “I’d rather die than be in a wheelchair”. I hope to never be in a wheelchair, as I’m sure it’s tough and people treat you differently and many things would suck about it, but die??? Honestly?
I’ve also heard “You’re so brave, I couldn’t handle it if [disfigurement] happened to me” I don’t get it. Nothing brave about it, I’m just trying to live my life. Hard to do that while hiding
---
### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/23 "2011-02-13T05:18:52Z")
> [@Essured](#):
>
> I just find that odd, that people would expect them to want to hide, rather than expect them to want to live as normally as possible.
Well, that’s part of why I started this thread. Someone with a severely disfigured or deformed face is not going to have a “normal” life, this is just a fact. People are biologically wired to react with alarm to a non-typical face. The question is, will covering up the face, or revealing it, result in the more “normal” life?
How someone’s life will be depends largely on how the other people in their life act. So, basically, the question is: would you rather go through life presenting a hidden face to people - thereby inviting them to imagine, either to themselves or to others, what is underneath the mask? What could be _so_ frightening and jarring as to warrant being covered up? - or presenting your face as it naturally is, which you know will disturb many people?
---
### Author:  [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/24 "2011-02-13T05:43:50Z")
As someone who has a…well, a skin disfigurement, I guess…bad enough that I’ve never worn shorts or short sleeves, and always wear dark hose, I’m guessing I’d probably stick with hiding my face. 😛 I’ve had people ask if I was Muslim, actually, due to being covered up even if it’s 120 out, but it must have been jokingly; nobody would ever look at my attitude and think there was a remote chance.
---
### Author:  [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/25 "2011-02-14T09:32:23Z")
I have dysmorphic features due to a genetic syndrome. Although they’re not on a par with Treacher Collins (which is a really MAJOR dysmorphic features syndrome) , I still look different. Enough so that I’ve had people ask me if I’m disabled.
---
### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/26 "2011-02-14T15:10:56Z")
I tend to hide my face. (I have a rather ugly face)
I used to make sure I was the one with the camera just so no one else would take pictures of me. If someone does take a picture and I’m in the frame, I’ll go to good lengths to move out of it so as not to ruin the shot. I tend to keep to myself & other people tend to like it better that way.
Every once in a while I’ll forget myself and make some comment that will make a few people laugh, but there’s always that one who’ll give me that _look_. Its to remind me that I’m not like everyone else and people just aren’t comfortable with me acting like I’m like everyone else.
That’s when I know that its time to stop laughing and face the other way.
---
### Author:  [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/27 "2011-02-14T15:51:35Z")
I admit I’d probably hide my face as much as possible.
---
### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/28 "2011-02-14T16:21:06Z")
I was just thinking of this yesterday actually. I am not one for fashion, but if I was messed up enough to make people queasy I think I would hire a designer to come up with some interesting sort of mask. I think it would be worth the investment.
---
### Author:  [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2011, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/29 "2011-02-15T02:50:23Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> I was just thinking of this yesterday actually. I am not one for fashion, but if I was messed up enough to make people queasy I think I would hire a designer to come up with some interesting sort of mask. I think it would be worth the investment.
Well, should you ever find yourself with a cast-off, I’m not picky.
---
### Author:  [@Lin77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lin77)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2012, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093/30 "2012-07-31T13:14:18Z")
For some people, it is a matter of self statement, of truth, to display a deformity.
However, I had surgery, a jaw replacement, that went awry, and since I signed papers saying I would not sue in case of problems, I remain deformed, paralyzed on one side of my face, an eyelid hanging down, a mouth with an expressioin that doesn’t quite work. I have no feeling in locations and in others, pain. But the problem I have is that I am a public speaker and looks are important. I want to disguise that side of my face without looking like Veronica Lake of the old comic books. I wondered if anyone else has this. I feel often like weeping, and wish I had lived with the pain of the mouth I couldn’t open prior to the surgery. If I had been born with a face like this, I would have learned to adjust, but it is difficult now and I am not flamboyant enough to make wild statements to draw away the attention.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-rather-display-a-bad-facial-deformity-or-hide-your-face/571093.md?page=1)