People Are Assholes

[Content Note: Body policing; disablism; culture of judgment.]

Going around the internetz today are pictures of actress Renée Zellweger at last night's 2014 Elle Women in Hollywood Awards. I'm not going to link to any of the articles featuring the images; they're easy enough to find if you really want to see them. Simply, Zellweger looks different; her face no longer looks like it did earlier in her career—a face once described by Jim Carrey's character in her film Me, Myself & Irene as "Your squinty eyes and your face all pursed up like you just sucked a lemon."

In the back of the lint trap, I recall having read or seen something about Zellweger years ago that suggested she had trichiasis, eyelashes growing inward back toward the eye, and might need surgery to correct it. I can't find the source now, so it's just one of those things stuck in the back of my brain. I don't know if it's true; I don't know if it was the reason for her alleged recent eye surgery; I don't know if it was a reason offered, once upon a time, for a potential eye surgery to avoid charges of vanity.

But it seems like a possibility worth mentioning. Because I can pull up stories of other actors and actresses whose faces have changed for health reasons, like the amazing Kathleen Turner, who famously weathered nasty commentary about her weight gain and rumors about drug addiction and alcoholism for years before disclosing that she had rheumatoid arthritis, the steroids prescribed for which caused changes in her appearance. And I don't think that famous people owe us disclosure of health issues, no matter how major or minor they may seem to us.

Famous people also don't owe us an explanation as to why they decide to have cosmetic surgery.

I don't care why Renée Zellweger got surgery on her eyes, provided she did, except insomuch as I hope that she didn't feel obliged to do it because of the gross culture of judgment that has scrutinized and discussed and criticized her appearance for the entirety of her career.

(And no doubt before she was famous, too, on a more intimate scale.)

Predictably, the comments on these articles are the grossest of the gross. Zellweger is unrecognizable. She is hideous. She is vain. Et cetera. I don't need to recount them, because we know the entire song and all its cruel verses and vile refrain by heart.

So, for a moment, let us imagine that Renée Zellweger's primary reason for supposedly getting cosmetic surgery was because of decades of ridicule and venom about the shape of her eyes.

I did this for you, and now you mock me for doing it.

That is a cycle of abuse, being played out in public as a fun game for the abusers.

One might be inclined to argue: That's why celebrities shouldn't change their features, because people will never be happy, will never stop judging them.

But you know my position on that sort of argument: As long as unrealistic expectations of women exist, we shouldn't be punishing the women who try to meet them.

Or tasking them with finding individual solutions to this pervasive, aggressive, overwhelming systemic problem.

Perhaps Zellweger just felt obliged to have cosmetic surgery, if she did, to stay relevant in a career that is profoundly hostile to older women. As a response to unfathomably unfair expectations to defy time and the reality of human existence, a woman who makes the decision to get cosmetic surgery or fillers is making a valid and entirely understandable choice.

Especially when the alternative is: No more career for you bye-bye.

Of course the women who have cosmetic procedures to try to attain the Impossible Beauty Standards demanded by their horrible industry are then punished for doing it, if there is any evidence at all they've done it.

None of this is fair. It's not fair to judge Zellweger if she got cosmetic surgery for health reasons, for reasons of pleasing fans, for reasons of employment, for some combination thereof, for some other reason(s) altogether.

Renée Zellweger looks different now. The only reaction any of us need to have to that is: "Oh. Okay."