There is a scene in Kirstie Alley’s show Fat Actress in which
she is in her closet, mewling repeatedly
”
where are my fat pants?
”
as she desperately pulls on one pair of pants after another that
have seemingly shrunk while hanging in her closet.
There is a scene in Kirstie Alley’s show Fat Actress in which she is in her closet, mewling repeatedly “where are my fat pants?” as she desperately pulls on one pair of pants after another that have seemingly shrunk while hanging in her closet. At one point, she is on her back, trying to force herself into a pair of jeans as she scoots across the floor. It was a little extreme, but it was hysterically funny. Alley’s show pokes fun at her with a hot fireplace poker while making some sharp observations about the double standard of Hollywood and our popular culture obsessed with youth and thinness.
In another scene, she arrives at a network studio for a meeting to discuss a new series. When she walks toward the executives’ office, all the people in the office, from the receptionist to the assistants and the executives, gawk at her in disbelief and disgust as though she had three heads with snot and drool coming out of her nose and mouth.
OK, so she’s fat, like a lot of people in this country. But that scene had me wondering if they would look with the same amount of horror at a woman I saw recently whose mouth is now double its previous size with puffy, uneven collagen-filled lips or those who look more like cats after age-defying facelifts.
What is wrong with aging? People, mostly women, have colored over their gray hair for decades, but that’s not invasive like surgery. With a nose reshaped by a car accident in college, asymmetrical eyes, and lots of other imperfections, I can understand those who want to change what God gave them, but I can’t understand WHY they go ahead and actually do it.
First, I have to say I can’t even pluck my eyebrows because I hate the pain of pulling hair out of my face, so that might make me a little more resistant than the average woman to have a doctor stick needles above my lips to get rid of the fine lines that come with more than 40 years of having facial expressions. I can’t imagine ever risking the dangers of general anesthetic and having doctors cut and pull at my skin and scoop and move my insides around with something that looks like a file from my father’s tool bench (I once watched a face lift on the Learning Channel) for something that is not health related.
A friend once told me her breast enhancement surgery was necessary because she was in sales and her image was important. There was a recent news article about how your clothes affect another’s judgment of you, and after years of believing that how one dresses shouldn’t matter, I have conceded that such a judgment is inevitable and unavoidable, and she should dress well for her sales job. However, I don’t think how large or high her breasts are should figure into whether or not someone buys her product.
Business considerations aside, most have surgery to be more attractive. If a man thinks a woman would look better with bigger breasts, or without wrinkles, well, he’s just buying into what he sees on TV and in magazines. But if he thinks she should do something about it, then why does she want him?
I don’t understand the preference for the smooth, non-wrinkled, vapid look on women older than 25. I don’t understand the trend of being 50 and trying to look 30. Have we so devalued the experience and wisdom of age that we will spend good money changing the way how one looks when what is most important is how one thinks and behaves?
Frankly, I’d rather be an 80-year-old woman with $5,000 I didn’t spend on cosmetic surgery than an 80-year-old woman with no money and implants. As my end of the Baby Boomer generation ages, I hope the acceptance of age, not the fear of it, becomes the norm.
