We were watching Sunday Morning and there was a segment on Jaclyn Smith. What a beautiful young lady she was, truly perfect. As a woman in her sixties now (I’m guessing), she looks nothing like her young self. It’s obvious she has had that plastic surgery so many celebrities have that totally changes their lips and area around the lips somehow. Ugh. I think it’s awful that after all the decades of plastic surgery, the doctors have not perfected it a bit better. Meg Ryan was another one who ruined her looks. Yeah, aging is tough when your looks have been your everything, but I dislike not even recognizing the person any longer.
The vast majority of plastic surgery doesn’t completely change someone.
IMO, it’s just a sad extension of the fact that our society fixates so much on looks. When you have a principal telling teenage girls that they look fat if they’re not a size 2, what do you think is going to happen as these women grow up?
We just notice the bad plastic surgery, or cases where people get too much. I think a lot of people have surgery that isn’t quite noticeable. We just think, hmmm, they look good for their age.
Don’t ask Jennifer Grey from “Dirty Dancing”. Her nose job pretty well did her career in. She was beautiful beforehand and just didn’t realize it. She was pretty afterwards too so not a victim of “bad surgery”–just not as recognizable.
IMHO it’s like most fields of science; knowledge builds on itself.
The stars in their 60/70’s now did all this stuff as it was coming out. Now physicians understand the downside of some of the techniques and do procedures/treatments in a more subtle way.
Hollywood is especially tough on aging women.
For older people, we can judge, but who knows what they would look like if they hadn’t have had surgery? Everyone would probably be saying “OMG, she looks so old! - she looks nothing like she did thirty years ago!” (who does?). And btw, Jacklyn Smith is 71. I don’t think there’s a way to make a 70 year old look naturally much younger no matter how skilled the surgeon is.
I question the choices of the “younger” celebrities more. I think Renee Zellweger made a horrible choice in having plastic surgery. Her face was so cute and unique, and now, she is truly unrecognizable.
Then finally, it you want to see how plastic surgery can really change a person’s looks, do some googling on Korean plastic surgery. I guess it is a huge thing in Korea for young women to have plastic surgery at a young age to try to achieve the “perfectly beautiful” face. I think the surgeons in Korea do have a high degree of skill when working on young faces.
The general rule is the major one and done. One can also have mini lifts…or eye lifts. Botox and fillers, both of them wear out really don’t change the face permanently. When I was a kid (here) most of my friends had the Parks’ nose. I darn it…didn’t need one. One daughter had her nose broken3 times in sports. The doctors had to reconstruct her nose.
And yes…I had a mini lift…and when and if I feel the need…I will do it again.
On “Buzzfeed” (not your best choice for news but it is fun sometimes) there was recently an “article” where the reporter went to three different plastic surgeons to see what they would “do to her”.
All physicians knew she wasn’t actually signing up for surgery but was only asking for what they might suggest if she came to them wanting to be “perfect”. So she got a good evaluation but hard to tell if the doctor went for “perfect” or “what I’d actually suggest”… They were asked to go for perfect.
It was enlightening as to how much surgical intervention each thought was needed. And the difference in what was a “perfect” face.
An interesting thing is that in the comments section most if not all didn’t think she needed any surgery at all (not that she was going to sign up!).
She looked marginally better in some pix but it was always her personality that always shined through.
A little OT, but South Korea is a good example of how much better and cheaper medical care is outside the US. The last time D was there, she got pretty sick and had to go see a doctor and get some prescription medication. Got in to see one immediately and total cost was $25-$50, without insurance. They apologized for the high price.
W had some freckles/age spots lasered off also while on a trip to South Korea. Cost was around $25/spot, total of a couple hundred bucks. Same procedure in the US would’ve been a couple thousand. Anyway, yes Koreans are definitely a little obsessed with beauty.
It is a subset of body dysmorphic disorder.
It can be done carefully so that the results are vague, almost un noticeable.
The physicians who are willing to entertain unreasonable client demands are no less guilty of patient abuse than a physician who’d give an anorexic a laxative.
It’s intersting because in television there are more and more roles for older actresses. Look at the Emmy nominees. Most of the nominated actresses are over 40! Several decades ago that didn’t happen.
That is true @maya54. It does seem relatively new, with the obvious exceptions of Meryl Streep and the like.
I’m nuts about Joan Allen, as well as the German agent from Homeland (can’t remember her name off-hand).
Like here’s the Best Acress Comedy nominees
Pamela Adlon (“Better Things”) +50
Tracee Ellis-Ross (“black-ish) +40
Jane Fonda (“Grace and Frankie”) +75
Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”) +75
Allison Janney (“Mom”) +55
Ellie Kemper (“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”)+35
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (“Veep) +55
The German agent from Homeland was Astrid, but I don’t know the actress’s name.
I wanted to watch some X-files reunion show. There was Mulder looking like a somewhat older Mulder, and there was Scully looking like - ahhhhhhhh, I couldn’t watch it. I don’t know what she did to her face but it’s awful. I think if I didn’t know what she used to look like it wouldn’t bother me too much, but we all remember what she looked like.
Sometimes it seems that someone has changed their face and it is just disturbing on an elemental level. Then there are people who go too far and end up with strange lips and skin that looks pulled and that is disturbing too. I also find the super wide-eyed Asian plastic surgery to be disturbing. I also find gauges terrible to look at.
It feels hypocritical to say that a smaller and more subtle job is OK but maybe it’s all a matter of degree.
@greenwitch I enjoyed the series The Fall, but all I could really focus on was Gillian Anderson’s face and trying to figure out what she did. She looked good, but different.
I think most have plastic surgery expecting a change, either in something they don’t like about themselves or something that needs to be reconstructed. I think some don’t expect to look completely different, and some hope to. And like everything, sometimes people do too much, and sometimes things go wrong.
I think you have to realize women’s faces change, cheekbones can seem to reduce or cheeks hollow or the face shape morph as fat changes or skin thins. Nothing says it’s all the fault of surgery. It’s not just wrinkles.
A younger example, but ever notice how some women’s faces change after the first childbirth? That’s not all glow.
It’s a given that there aren’t many good roles for actresses as they age, which probably is one of the main reasons Jaclyn Smith and others decide to use the services of a plastic surgeon. We live in an ageist society and women over 50 just aren’t noticed. IMO that’s not good, but it’s a fact.
For celebrity women, there is a pressure not to ever look old. Your face and hair should remain the same. So they get surgery to do that.
Timely thread. I’m actually going next month for a mini lift consult. I had one this summer, too. I’m in research mode, and it will most likely be a year before I have it done if I decide to do it. My skin is still very elastic with only a few little creases around my mouth. No wrinkles on my cheeks. I’m getting a squarer face due to the sagging jowl effect. It’s not horrible by any means, but it’s only going to get worse and it makes me feel old.
I don’t want to look 25 or 35. I don’t want people to think that because I want to keep it hidden. I just want to look fresh, me without jowling. I didn’t have jowling at 50, so I guess I want my 50 year old chin back!
I love Jane Fonda’s jowl and necklift. She still looks like an older woman, but a beautiful older woman. Why does Helen Mirren look fabulous? Lucky her! She has a heart shape face that didn’t jowl, that’s why! Ordidthey…hmmmm.
I do agree I hate lip injections. You can spot them a mile away, but I think they want that. I think making what you want known to the 10th degree with a good surgeon is the trick. For instance, I don’t want my lips pulled up at all at the outer corner. I think that’s a dead giveaway. I see Jane Fondas. Lips naturally curve down, they aren’t straight. Stay away from the lips, but you can pull those little creases out!
I’m all for plastic surgery if you have realistic expectations.