Monday 1 February 2010

When Looking Good Won't Win Them, Will Looking Ill Prevail? Yes, When Showing Your Age Means Showing Your Experience

One of the things I like about the pictures I posted of Chico Buarque a few days ago, I realized later, is that he obviously has not undergone a lot of cosmetic surgery, while a number of political figures seem to be doing this more and more often. I won't name any names, but several major women figures have lost the wrinkles around their eyes and mouths recently, which raises questions about the role of appearance in our choices of leaders.

Colouring hair? Well, who doesn't do that? (Not me, actually, because I'm far too lazy.) But the time and money spent in trying to appear younger through cosmetic surgery seems to me to be counter productive. Too bad people don't feel more at home with their bodies that they can't let them convey their age and experience.

2 comments:

Chrystal Ocean said...

Agree that using cosmetic surgery can be counter-productive. I mean, who can't tell that it's been done?

As for hair colouring, I don't bother with it either and my head is entirely grey. However, if L'Oreal still produced its Grey Chic line I'd use it. Gave my grey hair a real lift; still grey, but warmer. Lots of people disappointed by the removal of that line. Sigh.

lagatta à montréal said...

Not Pauline Marois; she had been looking tired recently and yes, her age. But she caught hell for being "too old" during the recent PQ leadership race, while Gilles Duceppe is ... one year older than Marois. The double standard is still there.

I think Louise Harel is just lucky in having wrinkle-free skin; this often goes hand in hand with being little and plump (I know that one, alas). She has utterly beautiful skin and snow-white hair (doesn't dye it, but there might be a rinse in there) but I don't think she was lifted. I saw her shopping at the market the other day and she looked wonderful.

Some of us were being quite shamefully bitchy about Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail. In her most recent file photo she looks about 30 - half her age, and at least 15 years younger than in her previous photo.

Of course the most notorious serial nip, tuck and hair transplant victim is Silvio Berlusconi, but the result keeps getting more frightening.

Is that a recent photo of Parizeau? If so, why? He is pretty much retired now.

I rarely wear makeup and couldn't imagine a facelift even if I had the money, but I do colour my hair. It was almost black when I was younger, with blue-green eyes, so one of the rare things I've always been vain about. So tousled hair in a deep red-brown that doesn't exist in nature, but only on the heads of les intellectuelles féministes soixante-huitardes.

To continue in this superficial vein - a nice distraction from the horrors in Haiti and elsewhere - have you noticed that Michaëlle Jean has returned to wearing her hair natural recently, rather than the stiff matronly style she adopted as GG? http://tinyurl.com/michaelle-afro Straightening hair gets really hard on it after a while, especially after a certain age.

Back to stuff on "odious debt"!