Nobody's Perfect
September 4th, 2007
Here’s one of those pages of pictures of celebrities without makeup, looking frumpy and normal. Drew Barrymore has a mustache, Natalie Portman has a double chin, and Renee Zellwegger looks all squinchy-faced. (Wait, that’s how she always looks. God, she annoys me.) (Oh, she’s also really skinny now.)
Anyway, the moral of the story is that even the most beautiful women on earth can take a bad photo. So if you’re flipping through your photos and come across yourself looking unfortunate, do not despair! Probably in real life, you are stunning.
Via Elastic Waist.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Celebrities, Gossip, Kirstie Alley, Media, Renee Zelwegger
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It’s kind of ridiculous how the nice picture of Barbara Streisand is circa 1970, and the “ugly” one is much more recent. Of course, she looks different. She’s substantially older. The other stars just look normal, which is what people tend to look like when they don’t have a team of hair/makeup artists.
Even though it’s interesting to see the stars without makeup (thus seeing them “normal”), I find the websites that show how stars are photoshopped/airbrushed more shocking (e. g. http://www.iwanexstudio.com/ –> go to “Portfolio” and then scroll to the bottom of the page), because they show so-called ideals that can’t be reached irregardless of how much makeup a woman puts on her face.
I have to admit that I am not interested in looking at pics of stars while they’re getting a Starbucks coffee or taking out the trash – it’s their job to act on screen and convice me with good acting skills (yeah, a girl can dream, can’t she?). What they do in their spare time (and what they look like) is none of my business – I don’t feel any Schadenfreude looking at the before/after pics. *shrugs*
Damn, Barbra’s nose looks really awful. She should have left it alone.
Some of them look awesome without all the makeup, although the shots deliberately show them with their faces in odd positions and whatnot. I love that SJP is carrying an enormous milkshake. I think she’s gorgeous; she’s skinny, but she’s so quirky and not traditionally pretty. Also, it pisses me off that the ‘good’ shot is of a thin Kirstie Alley and the ‘bad’ shot is of a heavier Kirstie.
Yeah, the Barbra Streisand comparison is completely unfair.
I’ve seen Natalie Portman in real life and the girl is TINY — there is no way she has a double chin for real. She must have had an awfully non photogenic day to get that shot.
arg, it makes me so angry that we have see pics of celebrities with bad lighting and camera angles in order to feel good about ourselves. Honestly, I dont care how many chins Natalie Portman has because I have better things to do that examine candid shots of famous people until i find a flaw. I think we need to focus on ourselves a lot more, and the people and things we know and care about. In this manner, we might hope to rid ourselves of celebrity/gossip culture and a more progressive, better informed society might arise. maybe. eventually.
I can speak from experience on this one. I’m not a girly girl, not into dresses, having my hair done, wearing make-up, or anything like that. But when I have gone that route for a special occasion, people don’t recognize me. When they realize it’s me, I get all kinds of compliments on how good I look and that I should do it more often. I thank them, but all the time I’m thinking, nah, it’s nice to hear that I look good, but I have better things to do than spend a couple of hours a day doing hair, nails, make-up, and clothes. So when I see stars caught in candid moments without all the hoopla that goes into making them look glamorous, I think, yeah, they have a right to look that way and who am I to say that how they look is bad? Really, is it the hair and make-up and clothes that make a person who they are? Nope, not at all.
Behold the mighty power of photoshop and makeup! And it depresses me to see this is a Hungarian website…American pop culture self-loathing is reaching far and wide into other cultures that have long histories and interesting cultures on their own.
(I’m grumpity today.)
I love how they are almost all making weird faces, just so that they seem uglier and therefore more like “regular people”. God, look around – there are gorgeous people everywhere! Celebrities don’t have a corner on the market. I wish we could find more role models who are gorgeous without stylists.
This rant makes little to no sense, but oddly makes me feel better. Somehow.
Any one of them look like she could be your next door neighbor. Not ugly, just normal. Some women are exceptionally pretty with or without makeup – Sharon Stone illustrates that; she looks damned good without makeup considering she’s my age (50 or more.) But then, I don’t scare children when I don’t wear mine. I can relate to vesta44 in that I look like a different person when I’m decked out and people really notice, but I wouldn’t do that just to go get bread and milk at the Kroger. Am I trying to make a point? LOL!! I agree with superblondgirl – there are beautiful people everywhere and beauty is not as rigidly defined in general society as it is in Hollyweird.
The Goldie one particulary bugged me, because all the “unmakeup” version proves is that she’s aged. She doesn’t look bad. She just doesn’t look GLAM. BFD. She’s still beautiful, and she’s aging wonderfully, as a matter of fact. Brooke would be gorgeous with mud on her face. There are just some drop dead gorgeous people, and Brooke Sheilds is one of them. And Madonna? THis is what ticks me off about this kind of thing: she’s riding a bike. She’s getting a workout. She’s going to be sweating and looking like her lovely late 40s years.
But I don’t have a problem with sites like this in general, because of the original point of this post. Not everybody who you think looks great looks great all the freaking time. And there’s a certain beauty in the everyday, in a person going shopping, riding their bike, or being ticked off. Glam is beaufitul and fun, but it’s not the only kind of beautiful.
They seem to be making the kind of face I make when I’m walking through a department store or something and happen to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror…and I’m squinting, and frowning a little bit. Because I’m THINKING about something, usually, and not about how I look. I guess it’s reassuring in a way to see these women in the rare moments when they’re not “on” for the camera.
I did enjoy that typo – Calista Flowchart! Haha!
I love the look on Julieanne Moore’s face.
Okay… here’s my little rant. The problem is, we’re too focused on anti-aging, looking great, being thin, and we’re saturated with celebrity culture as a norm. When you think about it, it’s a colossal waste of human spirit and energy. We are here for one purpose, and that’s to help others. When you continue to focus on yourself and how you look, your world becomes very small and inward. When you focus on helping others, being a good person, contributing something of value in some way (big or small) that’s what is important. We all get old, we all get ‘ugly’ and our health will eventually fail. Why put so much energy into a worthless pursuit? Start living life as a soul instead of an image.