Sunday, August 30, 2009

Warning ... Don't Try This At Home

Eyes are the windows of the soul. Our eyes frame us, and more importantly, our eyebrows frame our windows, and add expression to our faces. We can change a whole mood or feeling, or convey an idea or thought, just by flexing the muscles around our eyes, or around our eyebrows. In the quest for the eternal fountain of youth, people are carving up their eyes and disfiguring the windows to their souls. More than any other cosmetic surgery, "overdone" eyes rob a person of who they are. Would you believe these eyes belong to the same person? In both pictures they are attractive eyes, but the eyes on the right could only belong in the 21st Century. They are unnatural. The inside of the eyebrow that slopes towards the nose has been lifted too high, and the eye has been robbed of its expression, giving the wearer a perpetual look of surprise. They don't look particularly younger or older, just artificial -- generic. They look like eyes that a plastic surgeon has "fixed" to look like all the other eyes he has churned out of his office on a daily basis. I wonder what the owner of the eyes would look like, if she had allowed her eyes to age naturally. Instead of showing the workmanship of the plastic surgeon, would they show all the years of living she had done instead? And if so, is that really so bad?

Brigitte Bardot was once the most beautiful woman in the world, and I admire the fact that she allowed herself to grow old naturally. She didn't carve up her face in the quest for beauty and youth. She is 75 years old now, and to me she still looks as beautiful as she ever did. Every wrinkle, every laugh line, tells a story about her life -- and what a story. She has the confidence to say, "I was once the most beautiful woman in the world, and that was enough for me." She knows that no plastic surgeon is ever going to restore her youth, or even a facsimile of her beauty. To me, Brigitte Bardot is far more beautiful than Cher, who has become unrecognizable, or any of the hundreds of other celebrities who have lifted their eyebrows up to the stratosphere, or plumped their lips up to proportions not known in nature, or inflated their cheeks with fillers until they can no longer smile.

How sad that women are embarrassed about looking their age. Having lived a full, rich life has become a mark of shame, something to be erased. How will they ever know that perhaps they would have been even more beautiful if they hadn't had plastic surgery. The important thing is to look younger -- at all costs -- even if it is almost deforming.

We've come a long way, baby, but we still have a long way to go...

15 comments:

A.M. said...

Wow!

lovelyprism said...

It's so sad to me that women feel they can't grow old gracefully.

DUTA said...

Good example Brigitte Bardot. She was a perfect creature in her glory days. Her body, her face, her hair were as if sculptered by Divinity. She's clever by not letting any surgeon touch the original work that brought her so much fame.

PhilipH said...

BB was and still is the most beautiful woman, both inside and out. I fell in love with her when I was around 20. She was new to the world of cinema.

She oozed sex on screen. One scene that I recall vividly was where she was tempting an older guy simply by standing, fully clothed in front of him.

Very, very gradually she inched her skirt slightly higher; then a bit more. Above the knees and exposing her perfect thighs. Slowly, oh so slowly. Then the camera shifted to her face ...

I think she was numero uno; still is in many ways.

Bagman and Butler said...

Amen! The commercialism of beauty has all but destroyed our ability to see beauty by narrowing it to some Barbi and Ken standard. I was incredibly blessed in my childhood to be raised by my grandfather, a painter and sculptor -- I remember once commenting on the ugliness of a photograph in life magazine of a homeless beggar woman which resulted in his giving me a point by point lecture on all the aspects of beauty that were revealed in her ravaged face.

Stephen Leach said...

I think she still is beautiful, and I agree with you. I think it's sad how there is no 'natural beauty - everything, nose, eyes, face, teeth, hair - can be 'improved' with plastic surgery.

Alissa Grosso said...

It's an illness, that when taken to an extreme (Michael Jackson) can be quite scary. I think a future society will look back at this strange trend with shock and dismay. That said, sometimes I feel like a member of this future society that has somehow wound up in this strange age.

Anonymous said...

I so agree with all you've said. Artificiality is not beautiful imo. I also don't care for overly white teeth and big fat lips. Somewhere along the way we've lost our sense of what true beauty really is. Individuality to me is beautiful and wrinkles/lines give character to the face. It's like a road map of a person's life. One could only hope to look as beautiful as BB or Sophia Loren when they are in their 70's.

Jennifer D said...

I once watched an interview with Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton, they were promoting the re-release of 9 to 5.

Jane Fonda said that she hadn't had any plastic surgery done and she believed that someone needs to be the face of older women, naturally.

Then Dolly said "well... it Ain't gonna be me!!!!

I agree with them both.
I agree with you too, Jo.

Russell said...

Joan Rivers has had many plastic surgeries and she freely talks about it. She says she is rich enough to afford it and it makes her feel better about herself.

So, what the heck? If something can make a person feel better about themselves, why not?!

But I certainly understand what you are saying and I personally believe that it is better to accept yourself for who you are (or are not!) and then move on to the many more important things in life.

I do believe a peson can look very hard if they fight Mother Nature too hard (does that make sense or is it "hard" to understand?? heh!). Natural is always best.

Nicole said...

The eyes on the left look happy to me. On the right they give off such sadness.

heartinsanfrancisco said...

I would rather look old than deformed.

Land of shimp said...

even if it is almost deforming.

You know, that's very funny, and sad at the same time. It's also true.

It is strange, women, and people in general, are having a lot of cosmetic surgery. It also starts at a younger age.

The end result is so peculiar. People don't actually seem to look that much younger, not precisely, they just look different. I know a few people that have had "work" done, and really, it isn't that they ended up looking younger.

They ended up looking like women in their forties who had something done to make them appear younger, which is not quite the same thing.

It doesn't look like youth, it looks like an alteration someone made to try to avoid looking older.

la aventurista said...

I agree with you. Some things were just meant to wrinkle and sag! I thought that more people that I know agreed as well, but I'm surprised to find out how many of my friends already (they're all still well younger than wrinkles and grey hair) admit that they'll get plastic surgery as soon as they feel the need. It is sad, and expensive.

A human kind of human said...

Ouch! I cannot imagine going for any kind of surgical operation if it is not absolutely essential to life or limb. I have been blessed with not having great beauty and as such I never reached the stage where "looks" became more important than "being". Someone once said that wrinkles are God's footsteps on your face and I agree. A face that aged naturally holds character but to me faces that were not allowed to age naturally only holds caricature.