This Is My Face.

Sharon Stone was on "Larry King Live" tonight. She must be in her, what -- late forties? (47.) She still looks great, of course. But she no longer looks like Sharon Stone.

She's gotten that generic, expressionless, off-the-shelf faux-young look that tucked, tugged and tweaked faces get. She appears to have had cheekbone implants, a brow lift, Botox, and a face hike so tight that she can't move her mouth much. Her hair has been held under a Farrah faucet. Who is this beautiful woman? No one in particular, any more.

Nicole Kidman, who is quite a bit younger (38), has already begun looking like someone else. I know I've written about this before, but I swear that Oprah has had some (more) work done; on the cover of her latest magazine, she doesn't quite look like Oprah any more. It's as disorienting as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." The sophisticated new cosmetic-surgery techniques, whatever they are, have created a better-looking imitation of young (though no one would mistake it for the real thing; one admires the surgeon's craft, rather than the woman's beauty), but at the cost of individuality. What does it tell you that women today would rather look young(ish) and anonymous than like themselves, but old?

It's like an evil bargain in a fairy tale: "I will give you eternal . . . well, not youth, but a decent imitation of it. In return, you will become anyone, no one."

If I could get someone to take a good but ruthless photo -- meaning one that I think looks like me at my unretouched best -- I'd like to post it right here on the blog, full-face. I've certainly been tempted by the idea of cosmetic surgery (fortunately, I can't afford it), but offered the choice between looking like myself, old, and somebody (or nobody) else, pseudo-young, I choose myself.

Comments

[karen]

Cheryl Ladd, Suzanne Somers and Melanie Griffith (Cher doesn't count!!)

What's even more disconcerting to me is the men. They look awful!!! Sly Stallone did something, lips maybe, and my God, what the hell did he do?!! Kevin Kostner and Tony Danza. They actually look fragile; no longer as masculine.

I'd love to see a full face picture of you, amba.

[amba]

Good point, Karen. Burt Reynolds. Robert Redford. That death's-head Clint Eastwood. AAAhnuld actually looks like a cyborg.

[Dave Schuler]

I've earned this face, dammit, and I'm going to keep it.

I think you're being too kind, amba. Not only does the plastic surgery of today (particularly the repeated and repeated and repeated plastic surgery) not resemble youth, it resembles something that should be in a sideshow. I can't imagine that level of self-loathing.

[karen]

Dave: do you think that it's self-loathing? i would sooner say it's playing God.

Maybe people are no longer satisfied being *created in His image* and try to create their own.

Does that make sense?

[Dave Schuler]

For some reason my trackbacks to this post have bounced. I included it in my morning round-up. As I mentioned in my note there I see an eerie resemblance to the old Twilight Zone episode, “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” (link chez mois).

[amba]

Isn't that the episode where the "normal" people are the ones who look "ugly" by our standards, and the "freaks" look just like us? Unforgettable. As are so many of them (does "Room for one more, honey!" ring a bell?).

[amba]

No, I was wrong. It was an even more on-the-mark one! I'm really feeling like Marilyn Cuberle! Follow Dave's link, whether you've ever seen the great original "Twilight Zone" or not. (There are marathons every year -- look around at Hallowe'en and New Year's -- so if you're not old enough to remember it, catch it now.) Very sad story about Charles Beaumont

[amba]

Dave reminded me that the episode I was thinking of -- which also involved surgery, failing to change the "hideous freak" who looks just like us into a "normal" hideous freak -- is titled "The Eye of the Beholder."

[Dave Schuler]

looks just like us

If you look like Donna Douglas at 20, that is.

[amba]

In other words, "You flatter yourself, Madam."

[Dave Schuler]

Actually I was thinking of my own limitations in that area.

[KaneCitizen]

Her hair has been held under a Farrah faucet.

Quite witty - I'll need to drop this into conversation at work at the approp moment. (With due credit, of course.)

Now the real question is, what else has been tucked, tugged, and tweaked?

[Gruntled]

The sadder cases, I think, are not the ones seeking the simulacra of youth, but fine-looking young people who wish they had more ordinary faces. Greta Van Susteren removing her strong jaw to look like a generic blonde news-chippie. Jennifer Grey, a beautiful woman, removing her strong Jewish nose to look like no one in particular. I am grateful that Barbra Streisand believes that messing with her nose would ruin her voice.
Go Katherine Hepburn! Hurrah Spencer Tracy!

[sleipner]

I never thought I would, but recently I started watching Nip/Tuck. If watched with a jaundiced eye, it's an interesting expose on the culture of artificial beauty, and some of the personality issues that underlie the incessant quest for surgical improvements.

Personally I've considered a few kinds of surgery (hair transplant and mole removal) but the idea of spending THAT much money on vanity just doesn't fit within my self image. Of course I'm only 36 so a facelift isn't really necessary as yet. And I refuse to be an expressionless botox clone.

[triticale]

I have a couple of benign moles at the edge of my forehead (just like my father had) the removal of which would be the closest I would come to cosmetic surgery. Other than that, I like my face the way it is. The years have added character; who would want to lose that. I even like the salt and pepper look starting to show in my beard and at the temples.