And the Award for the Worst Plastic Surgery Goes To....

The only faces that haven't had work done...

 I am starting to prepare for the Academy Awards. 

Traditionally televised toward the end of February, the Oscars are the most prestigious acting award passed around by the self-aggrandizing/congratulatory entertainment industry which, apparently, loves little more than appearing in public wearing designer dresses and borrowed diamonds.

They exchange air kisses on the red carpet and eat sushi at after-parties while the rest of us keep Tide-to-Go instant stain removal pens in our pocketbooks and wait for their movies to come to DVD because we can't afford gas for the car much less a ten dollar movie ticket.

My mother and I used to enjoy award shows together. She'd pop on a new snap coat for the occasion and we'd snuggle on the couch with a blankie across our knees.

We used to gleefully sharpen our claws long before Joan Rivers became a style guru with a mean post-game show. Our evening included a critique of the clothing (since we, of course, were such fashion icons), bad-mouth the winners (since we, of course, were such talented actresses) and make sure we had our sunglasses at the ready so to shield our retinas from the glow of Susan Sarandon's annual display of snowy white busom.

We gasped together when both Cher and Barbara Streisand showed their asses in revealing outfits as well as when a "streaker" ran naked across the stage in the seventies. If my mother were here, we'd be watching it together still--only our focus would now be the wave of plastic surgery that has swept over the face of the industry.

Plastic surgery has been around for ages. It's documented that even the face of Greta Garbo saw a surgeon's knife and Clark Gable's ears were pinned back--paid for by Loretta Young, after years of the studios using surgical tape to keep them from flapping-- in the 1940's. Facelifts have been around forever, too.

But these days, there doesn't seem to be a pair of lips that hasn't been pumped full of something. Faces are either unnaturally smooth or stiff thanks to a variety of injectables. Chins can be been lengthened, jaw lines widened or narrowed. Cheekbones are created with implants and surprised looks are permanently bestowed with a surgical hike of the brows. While noses used to have bumps smoothed now they can be thinned and reshaped. It's a whole new world.

It's not just facial work. It's teeth. The academies love to honor life-time achievers which means rousing decrepit Hollywood royalty who totter out for perfunctory standing ovations. Wrinkled and deflated beyond the help of any surgical filler or lift, withered lips are parted to reveal sets of perfect, dazzlingly white choppers that would appear unnatural in the mouth of a teenager.

I am all for making yourself look good. Who among us wouldn't profit from a little tweak or trim? I will soon, no doubt, be able to hide spare change or smuggle documents in the folds of my neck and dare not put my shoes on in the dark, lest something other than my feet end up in my sneakers, but I am far too scared to take action. Not to mention, your average--insert your line of work, here--cannot afford such medical frivolities.

What the women (men, too) don't seem to realize is twofold. First, they are all starting to look the same....eyes, foreheads, teeth, lips. The look is becoming uniform. 

Plus, they still look old. But instead of looking like an older version of themselves, they become unrecognizable...or just look weird.

Did anyone see Katey Sagal at the Golden Globes? She was there but unless you caught her name during the intros, you might have wondered who the woman who sounded just like Peg Bundy was. Even the gorgeous Michele Pfeiffer (whose distinctive features were a gift from her surgeon way back when) had major changes made recently. Remember when Courtney Cox still looked like herself? I do.

I recently saw Suzanne Somers on television defending her credo that women can remain sexy at any age. I've had trouble sleeping ever since. 

Suzanne Somers. Really.

I wonder to whom she is referring. Now in her mid sixties, she has become a desperate vestige of her former self. With new cheeks and chin, her mouth barely moved as she talked about her regimen of eating freeze-dried transgender dolphin embryos for breakfast followed by a chaser of the urine of the last undiscovered tribe living in the rain forests of Beverly Hills.

It's easy for me to say as I dig for bus fare in my neck folds, but ladies, you're not looking so good. Growing older is terrifying. It's the last frontier as we baby boomers stumble towards our aging selves. But it's inevitable.

Let's hold our heads up, buy really good support bras (men, too) and watch the Academy Awards together. Don't forget your sunglasses, I think Susan Sarandon is planning on being there again this year.

Oh God, my retinas....