THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603270029
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: HE SAID, SHE SAID
SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY & DAVE ADDIS
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
KERRY SAYS:
I have a confession to make, Dave. Every month I engage in a form of self-torture. It's called reading Town and Country. This sleek magazine, dealing with the unreal world of Earth's richest people, is downright seductive. I've tried, but I can't stop subscribing even though each issue leaves me feeling more and more pitiful.
This month I was not only left feeling impoverished but unimproved.
Surgically, that is.
In an article titled ``Face Values,'' T&C examined the prevalence of cosmetic surgery on the West Coast.
Apparently Whoopi Goldberg was speaking the truth when she quipped at the Academy Awards that a lot of things had changed recently in L.A. ``Especially the breasts in this room.''
And it's not just the super-rich, actresses and trophy wives, anymore. It's regular people. In order to teach elementary school in California you now must have just one chin, and look like Heather Locklear. I think it's a law.
People out there are not stopping with getting big noses lopped off or faces lifted. They're running to the surgeons demanding to look like Sharon Stone. And the surgeons have gotten so good that they can do it.
They could actually take someone like you, Dave, and with just a few slices, dices and suction turn you into Brad Pitt. Trust me on this one.
I'm worried about where all this is going. And what it means for regular-looking women. Like me.
If Steve goes to many more movies he's going to start thinking that women have to have lips like Geena Davis' (as if those lips are found anywhere in nature), breasts like Demi Moore's (ditto), cheekbones, noses, chins and eyes like Cher's (ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto).
I fear that those of us with better things to do with our money than let someone whittle away our features or add a little silicone to our curves are going to become a shrinking minority of homelies - doomed to look our age while our richer sisters look as though they've got a pipeline to the Fountain of Youth.
Maybe it's my guilt at work here, Dave. But I think that even if I were rich, I'd have trouble dropping a couple of thousand dollars for wrinkle removal while there are people without heat.
Guess that's why all this madness is happening in California. It's warm out there.
DAVE SAYS:
Kind of you to say so, Kerry, but I don't care how good the surgeons are: To turn me into anything vaguely resembling Brad Pitt, they'd need more than a scalpel. A Poulan chain saw and a charter membership in the Hair Club for Men would be a good start.
And stop beating up on California. The article you read probably was written in Los Angeles, which is a fantasy unto itself. Folks are always confusing that tinsel-tacky town with the rest of the state, which mostly is filled with regular people.
You aren't giving Steve or the rest of us men any credit for knowing the difference between regular people and the images we see on a movie screen. We are quite aware, my friend, that the Geena Davises and Demi Moores of the world are carefully crafted fantasies. They are fun to look at, certainly. But that doesn't mean we expect the women who inhabit our real worlds to look like that. Nor would we want them to, necessarily.
Maybe it's just because I'm getting older, and my own flaws are magnifying themselves, but I've reached a point where I don't pay much attention to a woman's face unless it has a little character built into it. I've become a fan of smile lines. It means the eyes they're attached to have seen a lot of things, enough at least to make that person interesting to talk to.
The other night, for example, I was just about to turn in when ``The African Queen'' came on the late, late show. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. Now there are some faces with character. That movie was made 45 years ago, and Kate Hepburn's face already was showing some crinkles. But she was as intriguing then as when she was 19 years old, and she hasn't lost an ounce of glamor to this day.
I sat up until 3 a.m., just watching that magnificent face, listening to that addictive voice. If you offered me a choice of dinner with Demi Moore or dinner with Katherine Hepburn, it wouldn't even be a fair contest.
Give us a little credit, Kerry. We're not worried about those tiny lines and little fissures that light up the edges of your smile. It's the wrinkles in your logic that require an occasional nip and tuck. by CNB