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Eat, Pray, Botox

Is standing up for a woman's right to freeze parts of her face really part of the work of contemporary feminism?

By Vanessa Richmond, 13 Aug 2010, TheTyee.ca

Julia Roberts

Gracefully aging or raging against aging? Few have Julia's choices.

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There's a bit of a feel-good war going on this week. Eat Pray Love hits theatres today and audience members' happy engines are revving.

Power to them. That kind of feeling is in short supply right now. Whether freshly divorced or not (Eat Pray Love is, after all, a post-break-up, autobiographical tale about a woman who finds herself and triumphs after despair), there are plenty of people suffering from woes inflicted by the housing market, job market, or general life malaise who could also do with a little balm.

Fresh from a break-up myself, I've taken some inspiration from the book and movie, and if you offered me a copycat trip around the world, I'd be at the airport within a few hours. Yes, I'd rather be in Rome or India or somewhere else breathing deeply and eating and pondering the joys of life. Even though, of course, I love typing and online shopping and doing the laundry and what-not.

And yes, it's fun to watch Julia Roberts smiling broadly (with a non-frozen forehead: more on that in a minute) as she sinks her teeth into another piece of pizza. Yes, I'd like to sit on a piazza, gain 10 pounds from doing the same, then buy another pair of jeans after lunch so I can do it again tomorrow. Or at least, I'd like to lounge around here, while watching the movie, unconcerned about my emerging pizza gut, wrinkles, disheveled clothes and all.

So maybe it's just because I'm not basking in the Italian sun that I see some shadows in this sunny scene. But for me, the wrinkle in all of this feel-goodness is the wrinkles.

'Your face tells a story...'

It's great to see Roberts' subtle facial crinkles. Having hit my mid-30s, it surprises me how often I notice the new crinkles in the mirror, and how seldom I see them on the silver screen, which has to lead to a kind of culturally induced body dysmorphia, given that what we see around us doesn't reflect what we see in ourselves. So I was already pretty sure I wasn't alone in smiling a little more broadly and genuinely (and wrinkled-ly) when I saw a movie where the actor didn't have frozen-face syndrome.

In fact, much of the reaction to the press about the movie has been over a quote by Julia Roberts in this month's edition of Elle. In the article, Roberts says, of her Botox-free face, "It's unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don't even give themselves a chance to see what they'll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I'll look like before I start cleaning the slates. I want my kids to know when I'm pissed, when I'm happy, and when I'm confounded. Your face tells a story... and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office."

The comments had such an impact on the pop culturesphere that this week, Teri Hatcher, inspired by Julia Roberts, posted an album on her Facebook page, called Oy with the Botox!!! in which she posts pix of herself, and writes, "Out of the bath getting ready for bed. Thought about all those damn critics of my face. Love it or hate it, my face that is, no surgery, no implants, no matter what 'they' say. Decided I'd shoot myself in [sic] to reveal some truths about 'beauty' and hope it makes you all easier on yourself. Did I every [sic] toy with fillers or Botox over the years? yes. Tell me does this look Botoxed to you? Yes I am alone in my bathroom naked in a towel on behalf of women everywhere trying to make a point. Women YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL."

Here me ROAR! Err... roar?

On the one hand, I want to cheer. Don't you? How could anyone not be all for women feeling they don't have to be altered in any way -- emotionally, physically, psychological -- in order to be acceptable to the world and in order to feel good? I've certainly written about the perils of plastic surgery and cosmetic treatments, and the damage that culture does to women's bodies and psyches, and would prefer to live in a world where there was no cosmetic enhancement at all (I'd also kind of like a clothing uniform, but that's another story).

But on the other hand, at this point in the cultural cosmetic matrix, saying no to Botox is a kind of a luxury, and a (unintended) jab against the less powerful. Especially as Julia Roberts goes a step further and makes it seems as if it's just women simply not "giving themselves a chance," to grow old gracefully, rather than bowing to extreme pressure. I imagine that most people who read The Tyee haven't stepped foot in a clinic that sells facial poison, but it's impossible to pretend only a small, vain minority of women use it, or that those who do, do so lightly. And much like when the most elite of the technorati shut down their Facebook accounts a few months ago -- since only the connected can pull the plug and survive in the spotlight -- saying no to a powerful pressure all women face is a privilege, a privilege that requires power.

Botox is nearly ubiquitous. Like cancer, we all know someone who has it; unlike cancer, we all know plenty of people who want it. Botox sales were up about eight per cent last year. And it's primarily due to middle class women. About 60 per cent of those planning to have cosmetic medical procedures have an annual household income of $30,000 to $90,000, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, and roughly 86 per cent of them are women. And among women of middle and working classes, their main reason, though of course there are many, is to keep them looking young and vigorous enough to keep or get a job.

Don't bo-tax my botox!

It's this economic imperative that lead one of the U.S.'s most prominent feminists, the National Organization for Women's president, to speak up against a proposed tax that would have been applied to Botox (nicknamed the Bo-Tax). She seemed a somewhat strange bedfellow (bedmistress?) with wealthy drug manufacturers and surgeons when she joined the fight. But a few months ago, during the bru-ha-ha, Terry O'Neill said to the New York Times that many middle-aged women who have lost jobs consider cosmetic procedures and surgery in order to impress employers. "They have to find work," Ms. O'Neill said. "And they are going for Botox or going for eye work, because the fact is we live in a society that punishes women for getting older." She said standing up for the rights of middle-aged women to access cosmetic enhancement is part of the work of contemporary feminism.

"Could this be the same feminist movement that in 1968 filled a 'Freedom Trash Can' outside the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City with bras, girdles and false eyelashes to protest the 'ludicrous beauty standards we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously,' as Robin Morgan, an organizer of the protest, put it at the time?" asked Judith Warner, a New York Times columnist.

Warner also concluded it was. She wrote that we have to be realistic about what's happening in the world, and to do otherwise is idealistic and foolish. "You control what you can control. And so many middle-aged women feel particularly out of control now, as indeed they are, in these life-plan-wrecking economic times... How disfiguring it can be when reality bites."

So, yes, of course it's possible to feel good, be successful and find happiness without Botox. To feel better, even. To eat, pray and love without cosmetic enhancement. And it would be a much happier world without those "ludicrous beauty standards."

But let's just be honest that for many women, going Botox-free is more difficult than just following Roberts' delightfully wrinkly lead. [Tyee]

Tyee contributing editor Vanessa Richmond writes the Schlock and Awe column about popular culture and the media. She is also the former managing editor of The Tyee.

21 Comments:

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  • puppyg

    1 year ago

    That smile is painful...

    That smile is painful... it's hurting my eyes!

    Based on comments elsewhere, I would say the movie-going public is pretty tired of Julia Roberts and this film genre.

  • offended

    1 year ago

    Sigh.

    I get Botox for migraines. It's not always for cosmetic purposes. In fact, it's original use was for the treatment of strabismus.

    Hollywood starlets going on about how they're "natural" is not believable.

  • warbler

    1 year ago

    narcissism posing as feminism

    It's a pathetic statement of our times when women begin to celebrate avoidance of cosmetic surgery as some sort of triumph of the human spirit. This, especially in the celebrity world, is just the flip side of the same narcissistic coin. narcissism

    As for Roberts' quote, I would say bravo were it not for the obvious fact that "her" comment bears the well-executed crafting of
    of a publicist or PR agent. There's not a grain of original, intentional thought whatsoever in that comment.

    And Vanessa, in your rush to hijack this film and use it as a platform for your own inner botox/beauty conflicts, you neglected to tell us anything about the movie! Did you like it? Should I go see it? Sheesh.... some review. Or maybe your piece wasn't intended as a film review, which would make the subject matter all the more suspect, [OFFENSIVE COMMENT DIRECTED AT THE AUTHOR REMOVED. -MODERATOR.].

  • dorothy

    1 year ago

    The only problem

    I can see in the lives of these people is that they have too much time they don't know what to do with. The whole issue wouldn't exist if they had less time to look in the mirror. That, and they never really understood the story of Snow White...PLUS there is this:

    “Nature gives you the face you have when you are twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But it is up to you to earn the face you have at fifty.”
    Coco Gabrielle Chanel

    Now, I think, most of the stuff in this discussion is on how exactly you 'earn' it.

    And, I would say, all this over a MAN? There'll always be another one coming by, They're just like buses.

  • greenearthbazar

    1 year ago

    What Society Deems Beauitful is Sad

    What constitutes beauty these days is just plain sad. If you're not a size 2 or 4 with a blindingly white perfect smile, and no wrinkles in sight, then you're just not considered beautiful by the mainstream.

    I feel sorry for those who crumble under the pressure of trying to attain an unattainable, unrealistic standard of beauty, which in my opinion looks ridiculous. Our bodies were made to move, jiggle, and sag as we age, and that in itself is a beautiful thing. Those who try to paralyze it are missing out on a beautiful part of life. Plus all of that wasted money that could be spent helping others instead of on silly surgery.

    I for one don't want to look like an expressionless blank slate, nor do I want to inject myself with botulism.

  • alive

    1 year ago

    What's next?

    Fashion is all about making females feel good.
    In order to keep in business the fashion industry has to come up with new ideas and silly women fall over themselves to comply.

    Men? they end up paying the price, one way or another!

    Long skirts, short skirts who cares?
    Was a time when women bound their breasts because "flat" was in, can you believe that today?
    Yes Dorothy, most folks have too much time on their hands and that includes our prescious teens.

  • crh

    1 year ago

    crazy

    You can always spot a botox injected set of lips. They look 'pursed' and don't suit the face. Ridiculous that women are so stupid to think that this is beauty.

    Is this all that California has to offer?

  • North of Hope

    1 year ago

    dorothy

    Many have nothing else to except look at their face in the mirror.
    Some stars take on social causes and that is good. They all should take on social causes and give back to society that make s them rich.

  • sludge

    1 year ago

    Vanity vanity, all is vanity.

    And among women of middle and working classes, their main reason, though of course there are many, is to keep them looking young and vigorous enough to keep or get a job.

    hahahaha. keep telling yourself that, Vanessa. It's to keep or get a job. Right. It wouldn't have anything to do with female vanity. Nah.

    Reminds me of a poem by Alexander Pope:

    Then cease, bright Nymph! to mourn the ravish'd Hair
    Which adds new Glory to the shining Sphere!
    Not all the Tresses that fair Head can boast
    Shall draw such Envy as the Lock you lost.
    For, after all the Murders of your Eye,
    When, after Millions slain, your self shall die;
    When those fair Suns shall sett, as sett they must,
    And all those Tresses shall be laid in Dust;
    This Lock, the Muse shall consecrate to Fame,
    And mid'st the Stars inscribe Belinda's Name!

    But ya, if you want to say women get botoxed to get or keep a job, knock yourself out, Vanessa.

  • cp

    1 year ago

    I'm confused.

    So, are you agreeing with Judith Warner? Her stance is deeply individualist, and defeatist. That's all a woman can control now, her wrinkles? Please.

    In any case, the promises of botox are not that different than eat, pray, love, which offers the psychologica-spiritual equivalent of a plan for better abs in six weeks. The dope who wrote the book (with a big advance, knowing she had to succeed...) thinks a year of travel, with 4 months in each spiritual locale, can solve a life's problems. Well, on a smaller scale, I just bought a pair of those new shoes with semi-spherical soles that supposedly (at least as the ad in the supermarket said) exercise for me. Just by walking I will have a more-toned body than if I walked without them! I'll be cured of diabetes, friendlessness and tricep flab as well.

    I cannot fathom what sort of person could possibly experience the spiritual turnaround that E. Gilbert does in her story, unless she were deeply shallow at the outset and had little really to turn around. To think she is so precocious and gifted as one to be enlightened that after a few short weeks as a meditator at some Ashram that she can levitate! (I am sure that Gilbert had always been told she was beautiful and gifted, always able to take up new skills and learn new things quicker than the other kids, even meditating!)

    So please, don't give me this that botox is a feminist issue. Soon we'll be back to deciding whether or not women should be allowed to control their choice of sexual partner or whether or not they should be allowed to work. Judith Warner will write an essay saying that "the decision to make a roast or a casserole for her husband is all a woman can control now, so we should support that bit of control she has."

    I do, however, agree: we need a clothing uniform. As a university professor I have long advocated for faculty being required to wear Mao suits; I could see allowing a few different colors, even the choice of, say, pocket styles and fabrics, but no more.

  • alive

    1 year ago

    SPRAY

    Maybe the title should have been: "Eat (S)pray and Botox?

    I think more people spray products than they pray.

  • warbler

    1 year ago

    CP

    CP, Mao suits, university professor? Nevermind...

    I think you nailed it. The day botox and wrinkles become feminist issues is the day feminism ceases to be.

    I, too, am curious about Richmond's stance here. But I'll refrain from further speculation at the risk of being spanked by the Tyee censor again.

    Women of the world unite! All you've got to lose are your wrinkles!

  • Ramona777

    1 year ago

    Silver Screen Narcissism

    The book and movie depict the self-absorbed travels of one who has the bucks to Eat Pray Love on an international scale.
    What about the rest of us schmucks who can't afford such indulgences?
    It's more like Eat Clean Work.
    Movie material? I think not.
    Who really cares whether Julia Roberts botoxes? It's all illusion which in turn perpetuates our insecurities.

  • trylogic

    1 year ago

    boTOX

    botox, breast implants, face lifts, it's all female stupidity!

  • VivianLea Doubt

    1 year ago

    may be stupidity...

    trylogic, but hardly confined to females. Botox, penis enlargements, hair implants...there is a market for these too...a male market.

    "...saying no to a powerful pressure all women face is a privilege, a privilege that requires power"...I have to disagree here. Saying no requires a personal power, maybe, the power of one's convictions or perhaps even the power of being beautiful or the power of having a job, but men too face these pressures, albeit in some different ways. Feminism will cease to be when people - distinctly, people, both men and women - decide that the freedom of personal choice without being confined to stereotypical models of beauty, work, family, gender - and on and on - is a prescription for a happy life.

    Oh, and the need for a 'uniform' will end when people decide to see clothing not as 'status' (or not status) but as personal expression. Let's bring on the feminist revolution, it will be so much more fun for men and women.

  • susahna

    1 year ago

    CP

    I, too am curious about Richmond's stand. What I think is missing is the (lost?) concept that women can actually change the dominant culture.
    I read the article with two minds; an awareness of my privilege as an aging white, Canadian woman in a profession that is not dependent on my young looks, and a feminist who asks "is this how we change things, by capitulating?"
    hmmmm

  • lynn

    1 year ago

    Work-life.....or Life-work?

    "She seemed a somewhat strange bedfellow (bedmistress?) with wealthy drug manufacturers and surgeons when she joined the fight. But a few months ago, during the bru-ha-ha, Terry O'Neill said to the New York Times that many middle-aged women who have lost jobs consider cosmetic procedures and surgery in order to impress employers. "They have to find work," Ms. O'Neill said. "And they are going for Botox or going for eye work, because the fact is we live in a society that punishes women for getting older." She said standing up for the rights of middle-aged women to access cosmetic enhancement is part of the work of contemporary feminism."

    The revolution got it ass-backwards.

    For both women.... and men.

    So far it has mostly been about living life in terms of work - and work that mostly serves to further support and entrench the increasing inanities of an increasingly mad world.

    If work, for both men and women, was instead perceived and valued in terms of living life more fully... then that would be truly revolutionary.

    I'm with VivianLea on the fun part.

    Seriously, if we are not here for a good time ....and creating a good time for all....what are we here for?

    Sorry, but I'm not giving up my favourite hat or my pair of dancing shoes for a dreary uniform forever buttoned to a nine-to-five clock.....

    Like Emma Goldman, I'd prefer to keep my dancing shoes on throughout the revolution....all the better to quick-step over those ever-present minefields with.

  • Carolyn

    1 year ago

    It's All About The Fantasy

    Is it just me who wonders why the very real health risks linked with injecting a neurotoxin into your face wouldn't be enough to convince the average intelligent person that it’s safer to somehow learn to love your wrinkles?

    Allergan, the company that makes Botox, has been working extra hard to boost sales of three of its blockbuster products, all ones that consumers happily pay for out of their own pockets: 1. BOTOX, 2. its lower-face wrinkle-filler JUVEDERM, and 3. LATISSE, used for growing eyelashes.

    Allergan also sells implants used in breast augmentation and weight-loss surgery devices. But Botox is the company darling. Chief Executive David Pyott once told a California reporter: “Botox, once again, has been the most resilient product through the recession.”

    Allergan is in the business of convincing us that we're not good enough the way we are. In fact, their corporate shareholders insist that they continue pushing this key message.

    Whether you or I personally approve of the "look" is irrelevant - sales figures don't lie. SOME PEOPLE - millions of them - are clearly getting these procedures done. It's like WalMart - nobody shops there, yet they keep coming up with this eye-popping profits...

    Allergan's marketing strategy may change (although I doubt it!)after an American woman (a physician who should really have known better) was awarded a legal settlement of over $15 million in May because her own Botox injections caused her to develop botulism poisoning. More on this news story on 'The Ethical Nag: Marketing Ethics For The Easily Swayed'at: http://ethicalnag.org/2010/05/24/15-million-in-damages-awarded-for-botox-side-effects/

    As for 'Eat, Pray, Love' - it's merely the escapist fantasy that most of us dream of - yet could never pull off. Elizabeth Gilbert could and did - and bully for her!

    Is there a woman alive, rich or poor, who hasn't at least once during a very bad day (or a bad week or a bad year) fantasized about just such an escape - pulling the plug on the whole overwhelming routine in favour of running away to do something you've always wanted to do - even if some of us can afford only a wild and crazy trip to the Dairy Queen?

    Maybe the phenomenal sales success of cosmetic procedures like Botox injections is in itself the biggest fantasy come to life: the fantasy that we were born with big fat fish lips like these, and that we can actually defy aging.

  • jellybean

    1 year ago

    Let's just get over ourselves.

    I know a woman who puts other women down for using botox, and I happen to know it's only because she can't afford it herself.

    While I think this is all very sad and simultaneously hilarious, what I think is important to point out is that many so-called feminists demonize these women. Many of these cosmetic choices are not that different than core insecurities or trends that have had us altering our feet, our torsos and our teeth over the last few decades. If these women choose to wear their insecurities on the outside or attempt to hide them, do they not deserve our compassion instead of our disdain?

    Interestingly, Eat Pray Love is a mixed bag of "my body is a temple" vs "my body is just a shell, intimated by the carvival ride carb binge that would kill many of us non-evolved types whose bodies are still wondering what the hell white flour is).

    Alas, I digress. Our bodies. Our choices. What are we to make of the women who sneer at the ballooned-boobied cartoon walking by while she's escorting her teenaged daughter to the orthodontist? Hypocricy is a more intrusive evil than vanity, so let's start our own eat. love. pray. and just get. over. ourselves.

  • Fii

    1 year ago

    Don't tell me people are

    Don't tell me people are getting all worked up about a movie again....
    "The book and movie depict the self-absorbed travels of one who has the bucks to Eat Pray Love on an international scale"... don't know how much travelling you've done Ramona, but India is dirt cheap (and ashrams are free) and Bali isn't exactly going to bust your bank account. Italy is the only place that may be a wee bit expensive- but the wine is cheaper than here!
    And if the author chose to spend a year of her life travelling rather than say, spending her money on all the CRAP people spend their money on when they don't go anywhere, and are truly self absorbed because they have no interst in other cultures, who cares? It's her life. If you're not interested in the concept- don't go and see the movie!!!

    *sigh* I sure as hell preferred it to all the stupid "Oh she's pregnant/getting married/living happily ever after in suburbia" movies that proliferate the screen... *shudder*

  • Ramona777

    1 year ago

    Fii

    I agree that there are lots of people who spend their money on crap and have no interest in other cultures. Heck, there's tons of them in my small community. Small-minded and stupid.
    But a woman on welfare or earning minimum or even higher wage certainly couldn't afford to Eat Pray Love. Sure India and Bali are cheap but you have to get there and have the luxury of time.
    I have travelled a lot and I've run into fellow travellers who even though they are in another country are busier lamenting about home.

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