Embracing Flaws

Jezebel’s hortense has a post not seen often enough about embracing ones own “flaws.” She focuses specifically on female celebrities who have had cosmetic surgery that while “fixing” their “flaws” ends up making them unrecognizable and/or beautiful but boringly so:

It’s not surprising, however, that [Peggy] Orenstein considered fixing the gap in her smile: the technology is there, and she considered it an affordable option, and in a world where the drive to look practically perfect in every way extends beyond just Mary Poppins, it’s not shocking that anyone would consider “fixing” a perceived flaw. But in reality, the quest for a perfect appearance often leaves people with a generic look, one that is noticeably artificial and fairly ordinary when compared to how they looked beforehand.

It’s a perfect example of the curious paradox of norms. Everyone wants to be normal, but someone who is “perfect” – that is, one who is 100% normal – is bizarre and almost by definition abnormal. My mom had a great saying for people who were very good looking but at the same time far from the normative definition of beautiful. Her favorite examples were Uma Thurman and young Sean Connery, both of whom she called “odd beauties” meaning that despite multiple features that needed “fixing” to be normal the whole package was quite attractive. Given how well the two “odd beauties” have aged, it seems to further reinforce the fluidity of beauty. If someone ages well, that person is usually thought of as being consistently good looking, but in different ways throughout each life stage. As an example: I never liked Sex and the City as a whole, but the writers would sometimes drop some bombshell lines. When the four are sitting around discussing celebrity crushes, Miranda (my favorite, duh) says she’d pick, “Sean Connery: ten years ago, now, and forever.” The fact is, the man somehow keeps getting better looking, despite being balding, greying, wrinkled, and embracing the doddering-old man personality (see Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). The man doesn’t try to be good looking, he knows he is and works with what he’s got (except for his toupee in the James Bond films, but that’s another post).

Plastic surgery is one of those technologies that can be seen as a very very early stage of transhumanism. Michael Jackson is too easy a target, which is what makes hortense’s post all the more important: she focuses on how even little changes can hamper or ruin what was already beautiful. The more power we have to change and modify ourselves, the more we are beginning to understand that most norms aren’t meant to be attained and, even worse, they’re unrealistic and destructive. Norms restrict technology, technology pushes the boundaries of norms, but more and more we’re seeing the former has more power than the latter.