Can you always tell?
I’m not trying to pick on Annie Lennox.
I think Lennox is great. Great voice, great entertainer, and I must say she looks sensational for her age—or any age.
But Lennox touched on a long-held pet peeve of mine when she observed this:
I go to America, where I see a lot of plastic surgery. I have no problem with plastic surgery, but the issue is, I don’t think it’s done very well because it kind of screams at you from hundreds of yards away. It tells you: Wow, that woman’s had a lot of work, or that man’s had a lot of work. I find it disturbing. If I were going to do some work, which I mean, again, I haven’t done it yet, I might. But if I did, I wouldn’t want to end up with this frozen mask, which is Botox, which is surgery. I think, the day they get it right will be the day that you can’t really tell.
There’s some screwy logic there. If you notice some people with plastic surgery, does that mean you are noticing everyone with plastic surgery? Or even the majority of them? Wouldn’t the hallmark of good plastic surgery be its undetectability? Its naturalness? Wouldn’t you walk past the person with really good plastic surgery and not think a thing except maybe how good that person looks?
The same is true of hairpieces. I always smile when someone swears he/she can always tell when a person is wearing one. Oh, really? Can’t you merely tell the ones you can tell, and wouldn’t the others just pass you by without drawing your attention?
Of course, some plastic surgery looks really awful, and there’s much more that just looks sort of awful. What percentage are they of the whole, though? I haven’t a clue, and neither has Lennox. If she’s just trying to say that she wouldn’t have plastic (or cosmetic) surgery until bad results were so rare we hardly ever see them, that makes perfect sense. But that doesn’t appear to be what she’s saying.
I would advise her to stay away from Donatella Versace’s docs.
Years ago I worked on an Army base and a certain Colonel’s wife had a young face that didn’t match her body. It was obviously plastic surgery. We used to joke that she should have spent some more money working on her body.
Neo’s logic here is beautiful.
That remark cracks me up.
I don’t think I have really known too many who comment on them unless it looks like a lamb perched up there, or a flap of unprocessed deer hide held down with a string. The exception being Captain Kirk for some reason, about whom many seem to have an unhealthy obsession.
But that said, my own father does it somewhat. He seems incapable of believing that any normal man won’t have some noticeable hair loss by 50.
As a guy who retains in his late 80’s something of a “Cronkite” hairline, but who was unusually good looking when young – in a chiseled featured cowboy sort of way – I guess he’s just pissed.
I keep telling him that it’s largely ( still thought true or not, I don’t know) glabrous, testosterone deficient males who don’t; and would he rather look like some ectomorph wimp with a shaved chest and forearms? But he doesn’t get it. Must not have taken biology in college. Or he’s just damn vain.
That said I nearly had a heart attack the other day when I stood under a strong back-light and looked in a mirror.
Where are those bloody barbells …?
By the way, I would not want my wife to have plastic surgery.
The first time it came up in my life was when at about 29, a girlfriend – if that is strong enough a term – asked me if she should consider reduction surgery. I informed her that it was her decision; but that on no account on my supposed account.
I guess you know you are a couple when you get asked things like that.
I thought that struck the right tone though. Sort of generous minded, almost disinterested and above it all, you might say.
Yes, beautiful logic, beautiful person. Look closely at her picture behind the granny smith. Those dark eyes, great hair. It’s what got me reading what she had to say, oh so many years ago. What a writer!
I think there’s an additive risk in plastic surgery. Maybe a 3% chance per operation that you’ll look horribly fake, and in those cases I don’t think a person can ever return to a natural look. Those are the ones everyone notices.
English insecurity requires negative commentary about us troglodytes and our overabundant freedoms. Too much food, guns, surgical options, free speech. Just look how we abuse these privileges! SOO much better to be tastefully restrained ….
She should talk about South America try Brazil or Columbia where plastic surgery is much or common than in USA. South Korea is a hotbed of eyelid jobs. Typical English snob
I suspect that she is judging based on Kerry’s odd look these days.
I imagine Lennox means bad cosmetic surgery, such as Melanie Griffith or Kenny Rogers – stretched, frozen, waxy. They look freakish. Even too much botox can be weird with actors because they lose the ability to make a lot of facial expressions needed to convey emotions (seen Nicole Kidman cry on film lately?).
However, I would not be surprised if Helen Mirren has had a little something done, yet she just looks fabulous. And *that* would be a great example of well-done cosmetic surgery (or other non-surgical treatment) if we knew for sure.
It’s a bit like Computer Graphics work in movies. Everyone complains about the obvious CG work, usually the parts that stand out, but the best CG work is the stuff that nobody notices but manages to sell the story anyway.
…which makes it hard to showcase it as an artist, tangentially. When your greatest achievement is “it looks so real nobody even notices it”, you’re in a strange place for portfolio reviews.
Some of them you can tell beside the awful ones. When you’ve seen the popular noses, cheekbones, and chins, perhaps lips, it’s not as difficult to see many more who have had the work done. The thing that is awful about those is that, as they reach a pinnacle they become like… Stepford people, or something. It is disturbing. Not sure that is what she is on about, but I have seen that myself.
I just like people as they are. There are some extreme cases where, for various reasons, it is advised to do something imho. Birth defects or such. Sadly, often, those people don’t have anything like the kind of money, or time from work, to go get prettied up, or even normalized. Although… someone them wouldn’t be helped all that much. :p Oh, I am ugly, and count myself among those, so hush! 🙂
Years ago I was told by someone who had observed a lot of plastic surgery that the secret was to get it done early in ones later years and then only get it done as a slight tightening around the eyes. Wash rinse and repeat in seven to ten year cycles and you stay very nice looking without the look of being “worked on” for many decades.
Did it work? It did for her.
” Wouldn’t the hallmark of good plastic surgery be its undetectability? Its naturalness?”
Probably. But whenever I think of plastic surgery, I think of this,
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jMTT0LW0M_Y/maxresdefault.jpg
AMartel:
After all, the English can’t even bring themselves to fix their teeth.
As an old – shudder – white, bald male (gasp) who looks his age I am in the Rhett Butler league… I don’t give a damn. People who are trying to pretend to be what they are not are pathetic. Sometimes they are dangerous…. the mannish boy is a prime example.
Haha. I actually don’t mind the natural teeth thing (unless they’re growing out of an eye or cheekbone or similar). Frequent brushing is required but a little crookedness is charming and human. I get a little weirded out by brilliant white fake chiclet teeth, like the ones that Lanny Davis is sporting. Do they come out at night and grin at the person from the bedside table? Ew!
But yeah, they should fix their own house before coming over and critiquing ours. I always enjoy visiting but familiarity has bred a low tolerance for back talk about fat Americans (dry out, England, your ass is enormous and it starts at your neck!) and insipid ignorance about the second amendment.
Hillary’s plastic surgery was great. You can barely tell. But doctors can tell. And the sharp eyed. That’s what she did after she left State.
When she goes to America she likely associates with a class of people apt to be getting lots of plastic surgery, i.e., show biz types. These are people also most apt to overdo it, which translates to bad plastic surgery. So there’s that.
How about never get plastic surgery unless it’s necessary in cases of reconstruction or severe birth defects & marks?
As an undergrad, someone I knew got a nose job over the summer. When she came back in the fall, people said, “Oh, it doesn’t look like she had anything done!” But she did, definitely. Before, she had a shnoz like Jimmy Durante. After, she had a nose that fit her face nicely. éŽt was still a little on the large size, to be sure. She obviously had a surgeon who cautioned against getting a teeny tiny little nose. I knew a bunch of girls who got tiny little noses, and they looked so odd, because it didn’t like right on their face; the new nose didn’t “go” with the rest of their facial features.
By the time this girl’s swelling and bruises went away, she looked great. And if you didn’t know, you would never have guessed she had had plastic surgery.
Out here in marvelous Marin County, CA, frozen faced fifty somethings are a pretty common sight.
Another thing that I have noticed is that a lot of the women have ‘work’ done end up with a combination Liberace’s and Leona Helmsley’s kisser.
Those slicing them up must be following the same blueprints.
Meg Ryan, and Rose McGowan are two obvious examples of stunningly gorgeous women who now look like they are wearing cheap masks.
At fifty, you have the face you deserve. Live with it.
El Polacko:
But you are noticing the ones whose surgery didn’t go well. The ones whose surgery did, you just think they look pretty good for their age.
I doubt that Meg Ryan et al set out to have bad plastic surgery. They probably just drew the short straw in the surgery sweepstakes.
Lee, your comment about nose jobs reminds me of the following songs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq2R8zV8kVM Emily Kaitz- (Mama what happened to) Susie Rosen’s Nose
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCuiN2JnjpE She Got A Nose Job – MAD Twists Rock N’ Roll
Neo,
True, the weird lookers do stand out, and it can be hard to tell with some.
Most who look good for their age started out with great genes and bones, and keep themselves in good shape.
Not sure how an “A” list, multimillionaire actress gets referred to some hack who leaves her looking like some sideshow attraction.