Plastic Surgery – I Don't Get It

Bruce Jenner Laryngeal Shave Sparks Concern

So much for the Adam’s Apple.

I don’t know what’s finally prompted the transition of the former Olympian, if ex-wife Kris’s penchant for plastic surgery spurred his interest in mangling a perfectly good face, or if the overexposure to a house full of Kardashian estrogen seeped into his insides, the way it does in kids who eat too many chicken nuggets. I’m not here to mock Jenner; I just DO NOT GET IT.

No one can argue his 70s hotness. Perfect hair, white-toothed smile, testosteroney sideburns out in full force. I realize it’s not 1976 and that getting old sucks. Wrinkles and gravity and cancerous growths on your face, they all suck. But dangit, Bruce, why did you have to go and tamper with that? Couldn’t you just go gently into that good night? Everyone with surgery looks like a melting Yankee Candle.

Perhaps it’s harder to go from a 10 to a 4, then it is for us 7s to simply slip to a 5. It’s a longer fall, that’s for certain. Or did you never think you were a 10 to begin with? Tell me, is it a form of body dysmorphia that led you to all these nips and tucks and French manicures?

Sigh.

Perhaps Jenner has felt the wrong gender his whole life. But shouldn’t he have been honest with his wives from the get-go? I wouldn’t appreciate it if my husband decided in his 60s that he wasn’t going to ride this whole male thing out any longer. If we two are one in a marriage, I would have liked to have gotten a head’s up on that whole gender identity pre-engagement. Preferably before TEN children and stepchildren came into the picture.

Now I realize these surgeries are getting more prevalent by the second, and we’re all supposed to applaud their bravery and wear ribbons in the name of open-mindedness, but imagine if you weren’t just clapping for Jenner from the sidelines. What if it was your dad or your grandpa? You can say “It’s still the same person in there,” but the truth is, it’s not. Gender identity is a huge part of your sense of self. Women don’t look or act like men, and (right or wrong) they don’t get treated the same. Because they’re not.

Ultimately, you can’t change an XY into an XX. At least not in 2015. It’s mostly a botch-job mutilation, a best attempt at what the medical staff had to work with. Call me selfish and narrow-minded, but I don’t want my son to chop his body parts off someday. What a difficult decision to make. And I don’t want him to wade through a sea of shemales to find a wife, or to have to worry if the woman he is dating used to be a man and doesn’t share that tidbit until the third date. It’s a shame that anyone would be born one sex, feeling like their Creator got it wrong. What a complicated burden to bear. Perhaps if Jenner had had his choice, he would have been a woman from the get-go. Then again, if he had his choice, strangers wouldn’t have opinions about his personal life. But such is the nature of celebrity.

So go ahead and bash my ignorance, LGBT community. Scold anyone who has honest questions and concerns and can’t quite jump all aboard this disconcerting bandwagon. I don’t hate people who transition. I hate the fact that anyone feels like they have to.

Face Plant

Keep frowning, Jen; you'll get there in time. www.huffingtonpost.com — Keep frowning, Jen; you’ll get there in time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Every morning, I look in the mirror, and I see that little frown line that won’t go away, no matter how many hundreds of moisturizer bottles and creams and serums that I’ve used for twenty years. They all promise reduction in wrinkles and improved skin appearance, and definite results within 8 weeks, but I’m here to tell you that not a one of them has ever worked. Ever. This is not an invitation for you to comment about how great your skin care regimen is, because I won’t believe you.

With my long blonde hair now, I look like a surfer Gordon Ramsay, or perhaps Gordon if he was ever a hippie/stoner/metalhead. He actually had a professional come in and tweak his face, but seriously, he still looks old and wrinkly. But he’s got a great head of hair and an expression like a chunky nine-month old Aryan baby, so that works for him.

Honestly, I look better than his “after” picture, but that doesn’t prevent me from wanting to get a sander and just smooth out those creases in the manner that I wield an iron against pleated chinos. I mean, if Sharron Stone can do it, why can’t I? Oh, yeah, she’s a millionaire. And she still has smile lines that look like they could snap like a dried rubber band at any second.

Still, she looks better than most of post-surgery Hollywood. Every time I consider Botox, I remind myself of Meg Ryan and Melanie Griffith and the “chin ladies,” Suzanne Somers and Priscilla Presley, who seem to have injected gravel into their chins, quite the opposite of smoothing:

We want our celebrities to be the beautiful people, eye candy, the standard-setters of beauty. We need something to aspire to, right? I have to admit that last month when I watched The Way Way Back (to see Steve Carell because all the world loves a Steve Carell), I was a bit offput by Toni Collette’s ability to move her facial muscles all across her face. My first thought was, “Why is she letting herself be in a movie for all the free world to see–with a forehead as crinkly as all get-out?” But then I decided that it matched the character of the everywoman, so it made sense, and why shouldn’t she be allowed to just look like an average human being, warts and all? Perhaps she has already had something done, but at least she doesn’t look like a Halloween mask. I’d rather watch her moving parts on the big screen than hear the chin ladies deny rumors of plastic surgery.

As for myself, I think it’s time to trade in my Oil of Olay for something more results-oriented:

Say You, Say Me, Say I’m Dorian Gray

“Lady.” One word, and my best friend’s mother went weak in the knees. School had just started in the fall of 1980. “I’m your knight in shining armor, and I love you.”

Did anyone watch The Gambler and Lionel Richie sing “Lady” as a duet last April on CBS at the MGM Hotel? Did you catch Kenny Rogers’ story about Richie writing the second verse to “Lady” on the toilet? Yes, it was destined for greatness. It was the first record of the 80s to chart on all four of Billboard’s singles charts, including the Hot 100, adult contemporary, country, and top black singles. Over thirty-two years have passed since it hit Number One, and time has taken its toll. At least, on Kenny.

Last October, he told Oprah’s BFF that his plastic surgeon was one of the world’s best, and that he had “the money to do it, and I had time off.” Look, we’re all vain. Men are not immune to the lure of cosmetic surgery. You’ve seen Mickey Rourke. You can’t escape Bruce Jenner nonstop on E!. And Barry Manilow’s cheeks look hard and puffy like papier mache. But Kenny defended, “The truth is that I don’t know what I would have looked like if I hadn’t done it.” Good point. Maybe a debonair Colonel Sanders?

Now just try and Google image “Lionel Richie before and after.” A funny thing happens. There are no matches! Do you know why? Because there is no such thing. Lionel Richie is almost godly in the way that he looks the same as he was, and is, and will be. He does not change. Well, that’ s not entirely true. His jawline and hair length have changed since his Commodores days, but not much else.

Now Kenny has eleven years on Lionel, so it only makes sense that he looks older than Lionel. But that doesn’t explain why time stands still for Lionel. Did he sell his soul to the same dark lord that Ralph Macchio and Rob Lowe did? The old adage “black don’t crack” will have to suffice. It clearly ain’t crackin’. The evidence is at hand.

I actually think he looks BETTER now than he did in ’86. And if he did get surgery, that doctor has skills. Either way, Lionel should be giddy. If it were me, I’d be dancing on the ceiling all night long.

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