I'll start by admitting I'm a hypocrite.
Less than an hour ago I was researching how much it would cost to change the parts of my 44-year old face that I find the most dismaying. The hyper-pigmentation and creases around my eyes. The perennial chin hairs. The thinning eyebrows. I do this every so often and ultimately decide that the virtuous thing to do would be to spend that money on a non-profit or cause that's important to me instead. Which I also do not do. I have, however, paid to go to the spring Murder She Wrote Festival in Mendocino for the past two years. (More on that later.)
But you didn't come here for financial advice.
My friend Jenn and I went to see Practical Magic 2, the sequel to the 1998 cult classic featuring Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock. The new movie has many of the same plot points of the original. Kooky modern-day witches living in a quaint New England town. A curse that kills any man said witches love. The redeeming power of sisterhood. It also stars the same faces Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman had in the 1990s, or at least a creepy simulacrum of said faces.
I'm not opposed to cosmetic surgery. People should be allowed to do anything they want with their own faces, and damn Hollywood is toxic. I understand why they made this choice. The movie kinda sucked, but mostly because the writing was bad, there was way more telling than showing, the magic felt half-baked and there was not enough Stockard Channing. And yes, the frozen expressions of the lead actresses were a bummer and a real distraction. There's a reason there are so many horror movies about haunted dolls. When you've watched the same people on screen for 30+ years, you do start to feel like you know them. And I didn't feel like I was watching the people I know. I felt like I was watching Sandra Bullock try to act while wearing a plastic mask of what she thinks her face should look like. It's sad.
Here's the thing -- I want to see your real face. I'm tired of the phenomenon of 'Instagram face', all duck lips and high shots that make people's faces looks like inverted teardrops. I do it too, I'll admit. I just think I look better with a semblance of a chin. But that's not my real face. My real face is kind of square-jawed and full-cheeked. I look like my grandmother. I look like my mom. I look like my first cousins. I look like a person, not the idea of a person. And that's who I want to see, too. I want to see it on my TV screen, and on the big screen. I want to see it in your Instagram feeds and in your family photographs. I want to see the real you, smiling, with stained teeth, brackets around your beautiful mouth, laugh lines squinching around your beautiful eyes. I want you to look relaxed and joyous and wise, your stomach loose and your arms open.
Where am I going with this? Well, I think about Angela Lansbury a lot, as I believe I've mentioned. She did have cosmetic surgery, but according to her autobiography, she didn't want her eyes worked on as they were so important to her craft. She was one of the rare actors that was allowed to age naturally and in public, retaining her career both on stage and the small screen. And I think that's a big reason why she remains admired by so many of us. When I watch reruns of Murder She Wrote, I'm watching the face of not only someone I love, but someone who loves herself enough and knows her worth is not contingent on the opinion of others. The 2027 Murder She Wrote Festival? Pre-sale tickets sold out within an hour, and I missed my chance. Maybe next time.