Oh, Brave New World! Of Hollywood and Plastic Surgery - Page 2

But there were exceptions, actresses who, whether through wisdom or sheer disregard, gave us the profound honor of seeing their life spans on celluloid. Bette Davis did not remain a society girl with a brain tumor (Dark Victory) her whole life. Ingrid Bergman moved from her role as the stunning spy in Notorious to the crafty old biddy in Murder on the Orient Express. Katharine Hepburn did not stay a coltish jock to Spencer Tracy’s burly coach in Pat and Mike. No, she evolved to become the compassionate, finely-wrinkled mother in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

How are our stars ever going to become compassionate, finely-wrinkled mothers (and fathers) if their faces look like mockeries of youth? The plastic surgeons’ knives are not only cutting out our stars’ valuable patina of the past, but altering their faces for future roles as well.

Maybe moviegoers should start a movement — to boycott films whose actors have had “work.” As consumers of this unsavory product, our strike could get the message back to Hollywood that we no more want Jokerized actors than we want irradiated fruit. Most of all, our protest will say that we can handle aging, both in ourselves and in our actors.

Although, frankly, I’m not so sure anymore. A few months ago, I had a crisis of confidence on this very subject. I turned on the television to find a documentary on Bette Davis. The film contained some clips of her shortly before her death: she looked... well, mummified. Her face was drawn, leathery, and wrinkled, with mere blotches of color for eyes and mouth.

I shrank back in horror, not so much from her as from my own reaction to her. Had real human beings begun to look alien to me?

My horror at the old Bette Davis reminded me all too closely of a certain scene in Aldous Huxley’s dystopia, Brave New World. In one famous scene from the novel, two citizens visit an Indian reservation in New Mexico, one of the last surviving out-backs of “natural” humans. The woman is horrified by the sight of an old Native American:

His face was profoundly wrinkled and black, like a mask of obsidian. The toothless mouth had fallen in. At the corners of the lips, and on each side of the chin, a few long bristles gleamed almost white against the dark skin. The long unbraided hair hung down in gray wisps round his face. His body was bent and emaciated to the bone, almost fleshless….

Article Author: Jodi Daynard

Jodi Daynard's essays and short stories have appeared in numerous periodicals, including The New York Times Book Review, The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Other Voices, and in several anthologies. To read more about her, go to www.daynard.com.

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