[jariel]

Quote:

I can remember the moment like it was frozen in stone.

An appropriate metaphor as sitting in front of me in my old CNN studio was one of my favourite actresses, a bedroom wall pin-up through much of my formative years.

And her face was frozen in stone.

It literally didn’t, or rather couldn’t move from the sheer deluge of botox that had been siphoned through her forehead, filler that had been pumped around her mouth and facial skin that had been so tightly yanked back by surgery it was like she’d stared down a particularly violent tornado.

I was shocked. But more than that, I just felt really sad.

Why would any beautiful woman choose to desecrate themselves in such an awful way?

Well, we know why. To try and fight the ravages both of age and in this case, the outrageous Hollywood sexism which dictates most actresses over 50 are never seen or heard of again in celluloid circles.

I thought of all this yesterday when the photos of Renee Zellweger dropped, prompting an instant global gossip meltdown.

Once again, my first reaction was shock, my second sadness.

Personally, I loved Renee precisely because her face was unconventionally pretty, cheeky and natural.

Now she’s morphed herself into the exact same fake-featured blonde that bestrides every street in Los Angeles.

She insisted today that her dramatic new look is all down to her happy, fulfilled new life. And honestly, if she’s happy, then I’m happy for her.

What I’m not happy about is the climate of fear, insecurity and panic that envelops these actresses when they hit their 40s.

A climate driven by the ever more frenzied media attention devoted to female celebrity appearance.

Tabloid magazines, TV entertainment shows and yes, online websites, all fuel the fire of torso-related terror we inflict on these poor women.

But that’s nothing compared to the onslaught of bitchy vitriol and humiliation that rains down on them through social media.

I was on Twitter when Renee’s new look was first revealed and it exploded more ferociously than a New Year’s Eve fireworks display in Sydney Harbour.

The reaction, mainly I noted from men, was gleeful, mocking and often downright vicious.

I can only imagine what degree of hell Renee Zellweger went through when she read the bones of her face being picked apart like a gazelle’s carcass feasted on by a pack of gluttonous vultures.

This is the new misogyny and it stinks.

Female celebrities get jeered at, and professionally victimised, for getting older. And they get jeered at for trying to do anything about it.

They can’t win, it’s just degrees of losing.

The sexist abuse is also rankly hypocritical.

My experience of interviewing Hollywood stars suggests it’s often men who perpetrate far worse vanity-related abominations on their faces:

The tough-guy actor with scars behind his ears so grimly visible they had to be repeatedly touched up with make-up during our interview.

The music legend whose whole head had been scalped, sculptured, scraped and scissored into a visage so gruesomely surreal he could have played Smeagol from Lord of the Rings without make-up.

The television icon, now in his 80s, who looked like he’d gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson – all in a surely pointless attempt to look 75.

The country singing star who couldn’t even mouth the words to one of his own classic hits because his puffed out mouth could barely open.

The all-time great septuagenarian movie heart-throb whose shocking bright bronze hair was only matched by his weirdly taut cheeks and jowels.

All of them made me slightly shudder when I first looked at them. Yet none of them have suffered anything like the public humiliation Renee’s gone through.

So let’s stop with the pretence that this plastic surgery phenomenon is just a female celebrity domain.

Meryl Streep looks amazing and has sworn off plastic surgery. Jack Nicolson, seen here in the South of France a few years ago, has equally shunned going under the knife. ‘I don’t want to be judgmental but some of the things you see these days in Hollywood are horrifying'

Yet the biggest movie stars in the world are Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

The former is 65 and looks as natural as the day she was born.

‘I understand the chagrin that accompanies ageing, especially for a woman,’ Meryl said, ‘but I think people look funny when they freeze their faces.’

The latter is 77 and each summer we see him on a speedboat in St Tropez - fat, bald, bespectacled, clutching pizza and beer, and surrounded by a flotsam of adoring young ladies.

‘I haven’t had surgery,’ Jack said, ‘I don’t want to be judgmental but some of the things you see these days in Hollywood are horrifying. I don’t want to scare people.’

I agree with them but of course, Meryl and Jack have two things which most of their entertainment colleagues lack: unique talent and supreme self-confidence.

The reason so many stars, male and female, are racing to their plastic surgeons is because they’re insecure about their looks, paranoid about their jobs and terrified about public opprobrium.

It’s a shared affliction but it’s the women, like Renee Zellweger, who get 100 times the attention and vitriol.

It’s time we cut them some slack.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...londe.html

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

That doesn't make any sense.

Patriarchy is supposed to insist on female beauty.

But Renee got plastic surgery and now she looks worse than before.

So how can it be the patriarchy that forced her into it?

[kbell]

She got massive surgery because she is insecure like Michael Jackson. After she has it done, she flaunts for attention whoring purposes. Sounds motivated from the patriarchy to me. Has Pierce ever said anything logical?

[SteveMcMahon]

(10-23-2014 04:53 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

That doesn't make any sense.

Patriarchy is supposed to insist on female beauty.

But Renee got plastic surgery and now she looks worse than before.

So how can it be the patriarchy that forced her into it?

I can't believe how much of a misogynistic woman-hating shitlord douchecanoe Piers Moron is.

He's saying Renee Zellweger got plastic surgery not because she's a strong independent woman who makes her own choices, but because she's so weak and pathetic that patriarchy made her do it.

Wow. Just wow. I can't even.

So Piers Shitlord wants us to believe that Zelwegger didn't rise to the top of the most competitive industry on the planet - becoming a fabulously wealthy global superstar in the process - because of her own talent, but that she is in fact a frightened little girl who does whatever the patriarchy tells her to do? A meat-puppet controlled by men?

IS THAT WHAT HE THINKS OF OUR FIERCE, FIESTY FEMALE CELEBRITARDS?!?!?!

[Mage]

A meteor fell from sky and hit my car. Damn misogyny!

I got drunk recently and fell into a puddle, my clothes are now dirty. Men should feel guilty for this!

I was out for a walk and a bee stung me. It's the fault of patriarchy!

[TheWastelander]

When I was on the subway yesterday some man asked me to scoot over.

Was I raped?

[aphelion]

Read this as 'misogynist tranny'.

I should probably start drinking later in the day than I do.

[freeuser]

This idiot contradicts himself. First, he claims sexism and misogyny are responsible for this. But then he says a lot of men use plastic surgery, as well. Is the reason for this, also, misogyny? Or maybe, it´s something else, moron!

He also seems to ignore, that it´s mostly women, who criticize and pick apart other females. Specially the famous ones. It´s them who put a lot of "pressure" on actresses. Men don´t read Cosmo.

We could care less, about what type of dress or jewelry Nicole Kidman wears.

[Maciano]

I tend to agree, anyone who did this must really hate women.

She got butchered, somebody went Ted Bundy on her face.

[The Reactionary Tree]

The question of our time:

[Captain Gh]

How can it be misogynist when women are the one who consume the most in consumer spending and watch more tv at every slot time? Wow the idiocy around the mainstream media is really getting out of hand! !

[Constitution45]

(10-23-2014 09:22 AM)Captain Gh Wrote:  

How can it be misogynist when women are the one who consume the most in consumer spending and watch more tv at every slot time? Wow the idiocy around the mainstream media is really getting out of hand! !

Yeah this gets to me as well. Straight men don't generate profit nor have anything invested towards fashion mags. Same can be said for the female celebrity culture. Really if you look at the daily mail website for women's section, its them talking about looks, body sizes etc.

The bottom line, is men like attractive women, and this is not something constructed as the feminists like to make it out to be. This is a curve ball from nature they are trying to hit. Attractive women hold the highest feminine power. Although unattractive women in the past have been able to super pass this by developing feminine traits, or working on their own characters to make them more desirable for men.

Men make an easy target to blame, because a lot of men aren't aware of the game being played on them, nor are they willing to call them out on it.

I try to avoid feminist threads as its just become beyond a joke, trying to analyse these narcissistic, spoilt brats wrapped up in their own self delusions, just drains away my personal energy. Still like poking a sore tooth it has to be done occasionally.

[BLarsen]

Gamergate, and Gawker in particular, has caused me to really re-evaluate how I see the media. This is not a real article. Piers Morgan is the zookeeper, the article is raw meat, and the women this article is aimed at are the lions being held in a cage.

This article is not meant to give any real commentary or offer any real solutions. The only aim is to piss off the target demographic so that they share it on Facebook and Twitter, increase the number of clicks, raise Piers Morgan's profile, get his employer paid for those clicks, ad infinitum.

[CRR]

(10-23-2014 08:49 AM)aphelion Wrote:  

Read this as 'misogynist tranny'.

I should probably start drinking later in the day than I do.

You're not alone, I read it that way too.

Articles like this to Lindy West complaining about 'creepy guys' at coffee shops just shows that they got nothing.

Thing is, people do believe in equality, but that the genders are different. Of course no one should rape or commit sexual assault, but they've trivialized such matters.

Here, they equate voluntary plastic surgery with 'tyranny'. Once again, it's hard to take them seriously.

[Akula]

(10-23-2014 11:26 AM)CRR Wrote:  

(10-23-2014 08:49 AM)aphelion Wrote:  

Read this as 'misogynist tranny'.

I should probably start drinking later in the day than I do.

You're not alone, I read it that way too.

Articles like this to Lindy West complaining about 'creepy guys' at coffee shops just shows that they got nothing.

Thing is, people do believe in equality, but that the genders are different. Of course no one should rape or commit sexual assault, but they've trivialized such matters.

Here, they equate voluntary plastic surgery with 'tyranny'. Once again, it's hard to take them seriously.

Yeah, but you and all of us should take them very seriously. They are the ones in power and the ones controlling both the debate and most times even the opposition.

[vinman]

(10-23-2014 04:53 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

That doesn't make any sense.

Patriarchy is supposed to insist on female beauty.

But Renee got plastic surgery and now she looks worse than before.

So how can it be the patriarchy that forced her into it?

Because misogyny, Bro!

[solo]

Like most cultural commentators Morgan is living in a total bubble when it comes to problems affecting women and girls.

That is why he chooses to feel sorry for a multi-millionaire who despite her age probably has thousands of suitors all over the world.

Instead of talking about what can be done to help girls and women living in poverty, fleeing from wars and violence etc.

Renée Zellweger can't get the leads in the big blockbusters anymore. So what?

[catoblepa]

unfortunately the surgery made her lose that eurasian touch in her eyes that was part of her scando-lapp heritage.

[Wahawahwah]

[rant]

Hes a fuckin idiot.
Never liked him.
fucking dumbfuck.
motherfucking retard.
hope they cast him in the game of thrones and have the green dragon green dragon burn him to a crisp.
fuckin prick.

[/rant]

[Feisbook Control]

Hollywood and celebrity culture are shallow in general. Whilst the attrition rate might be higher for women, there's still huge churn for men also. There are plenty of guys typecast into roles as buff eye candy who will fade into obscurity also. Does anyone remember any of the male cast from Baywatch, other than David Hasselhoff? Do those guys even have careers anymore? Or how about Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones). Does anyone think he's going to be making movies in twenty years? I'll go one step further and suggest that someone like Orlando Bloom won't be doing anything of note in twenty years. Men have better staying power because of biology, but that's still not the real issue.

The reason Merryl Streep has gone the distance is primarily because she's chosen her roles carefully and she is a good actress. The earliest movies of hers I can remember watching are The Deer Hunter (1978) and Out of Africa (1985). Neither movie saw her as a hot bimbo, and neither movie was what we would call light fare. Obviously, choosing roles as bimbos or in stupid rom coms will mean you have no staying power, just like being a guy who is primarily known for his pectoral muscles or abs will end up the same way. Another example of choosing her roles well might be Cate Blanchett. I don't think anyone would ever say she was hot, but that doesn't seem to have been her appeal anyway. I haven't seen every one of her movies, but I've never seen her in mere popcorn fare. As such, I expect that she will be the Merryl Streep of her generation, and that there will still be good roles for her in twenty years also. This leads into my next point.

There is a tyranny and a tragedy here, but it's not what people like Piers Morgan think it is. The tragedy is that people like Zellweger have not followed their biological course. Every tribe has its patriarchs and matriarchs. These are men and women who have outlived their physical usefulness as hunters or breeders, but have instead aged gracefully into their roles as repositories of wisdom based upon having lived through those roles in earlier life. The women knew that they would one day hit the Wall, or if they didn't, the matriarchs were there to tell them to get their heads straight. Maybe in their teens or early twenties, they were pursued by many men in the tribe. Then, in their twenties, thirties and forties, they became good wives and mothers. Then, in their fifties and sixties, they became grandmothers and matriarchs. That is the natural life course of a woman, including in Hollywood (her "children" being more serious and weighty movies, perhaps with less immediate box office appeal, such that her "grandchildren" are iconic roles in iconic movies). It's silly to think though, that one can go from A to C without going through B.

People like Renee Zellwegger were never actors to begin with. They were set decorations to be thrown away when they got a little worn out. Where was the sisterhood telling Zellwegger to choose her roles more carefully ten or fifteen years ago?

[Troll King]

<" The reaction, mainly I noted from men, was gleeful, mocking and often downright vicious."

Gotta agree with other posters. This is bullshit.

When I am standing in line at the grocery store I will occasionally look through one or two of the gossip mags but I have never bought that shit in my life. I mainly read the covers to see what the fuck is going on and to learn a few names of newer celebs that I have never heard about.

Men, at least straight men, by and large do not watch shit like E entertainment or Chelsea Lately or buy mags with titles like, "30 most horrifying celeb bikini shots" or whatever.

Women buy this shit because let's be real....women are the biggest fucking stalkers and social creepers and shamers there are. They stalk these female celebs and pick apart every little thing about their body, relationships, and lives so that they can sit back and feel all proud and smug compared to the female celebs.

It is the female version of living vicariously...except most western women are complete cunts. That is the difference. Men may sit down and watch 10 hours of football to escape their boring lives. Women obsess and stalk celebs and imagine giving them eating disorders as the mean girls in high school...it's how they cope with the fact that they didn't marry mcdreamy after meeting on a movie set and instead work as a teller at a bank.

[Beyond Borders]

(10-23-2014 08:37 AM)TheWastelander Wrote:  

When I was on the subway yesterday some man asked me to scoot over.

Was I raped?

Yes.

[Foolsgo1d]

Piers is a cunt.


Need I say more about what he says?

[solo]

(10-23-2014 02:20 PM)catoblepa Wrote:  

unfortunately the surgery made her lose that eurasian touch in her eyes that was part of her scando-lapp heritage.

I think you can still see it, at least partly. It think she did the it because of age, not because of her ethnicity/heritage.

Though plastic surgery to make people look more like another race is sad.

I always kind of liked her btw, still do. Though not those Diary movies obviously.

[HeyPete]

She was cute in Jerry Maguire. But that was 18 years ago. She was 26/27 then. You can be cutesy at 26. It doesn't work for women at 45.

Meg Ryan was pissed she couldn't get Top Gun and When Harry Met Sally roles anymore. She pumped up her lips and now looks like she gets in fights everyday they are so swollen.

Still didn't help. You're too old Meg.

Women need to accept the fact. Once you are past a certain age (wall) your career, as you knew it, is done.

Zellwegger is worth $45M with a $4M dollar home in Pacific Palisades. She's more than OK. She's not someone's feelings I will ever worry about.