Erase Those Laugh Lines And Join The Aliens

Sun Herald

Sunday May 6, 2007

Mia Freedman Mia Freedman is the creative services director at Channel Nine and an editorial consultant for ACP Magazines.

I'M sitting in the waiting room at the dermatologist's office. The receptionist is on the phone, speaking to a patient who is trying to make an appointment time. She is not talking loudly but I am sitting very close to her desk.

The only reason I'm eavesdropping - I mean listening - is because I am shamelessly nosy. It's also because the newest magazine in the waiting room is from June 2005, and I'm looking for distraction. I find it in the form of the receptionist's conversation, which would have been unremarkable were it not for what I hear next. "Can I just get your name?" she asks the caller. She then repeats the name, which I recognise as a minor celebrity I've met a few times. A woman I respect and admire.

"Right, and what's the appointment for?" Pause. "Botox? OK." At this point I think my ears might fall off. The receptionist continues. "Now of course you know how it all works from the other times but just remember to arrive an hour early so we can apply the numbing cream, OK? Terrific, see you tomorrow at 10.30."

This woman coming to get her face jabbed - evidently not for the first time - is very beautiful. I've always thought so and I've never been able to pick her age. Forty-something perhaps.

It's probably worth mentioning that I was not at the dermatologist for Botox. Never had it. In fact, on good days, I can get very high-horsey about it. "Why are we turning ourselves into a generation of Stepford Wife clones?" I'll rage to anyone who's listening. "Why are we erasing our facial expressions with needles and poison? What message are we sending to our daughters? That female beauty is based on a blank face? Honestly! It's appalling! Appalling!"

But on bad days, when I'm feeling old and wrinkly, I look in the mirror, stumble off my soapbox and shrug, "Oh, whatever. Maybe I should. Anything to make me look less tired." While I haven't yet waved the white flag and succumbed to the jab, it's mildly disappointing that my feminist principles can be replaced so easily by vanity. Even if it's just for a moment.

Evidently, I'm not getting younger. I was reminded of this a few months ago when I received a call from a subeditor at a magazine who rang to check my age for a story. Here's what I've noticed about telling someone your age (once you're over about 20): part of you secretly wants the reply to be "My goodness! You don't look it!"

That's not quite the response I got when I told this woman I was 35. "Oh yeah," she said with audible smugness. "A few of us here were looking at your photo and we guessed 35." Oh. That's OK, I reassured my Botox-free self. And it was OK. Until she dropped this on my head: "I hate to tell you but you look your age."

Ouch. Whaddya say to that, huh? Look, I think I can quite reasonably deal with looking my age. But it was the way she said: "I hate to tell you" as if she were breaking some terribly bad news to me.

It's not the numbers that are bothering me as I get older so much as the lack of visual role models. Possibly, my big mistake has been to reference myself against celebrities. Silly, silly me. Because celeb magazines are starting to resemble cyborg catalogues. None of the women in them look remotely human. And once you factor in their ages, your brain starts to hurt with the effort of reconciling what you know about ageing with what you are seeing.

There are celebrities who are older than me in years but look much younger. This is confusing. There are also celebrities who used to be older than me, but are now younger. Or claim to be. This too is confusing. But the truly disconcerting thing is that group of famous women (and a few famous men) who look like utter freaks. Often you can't put your finger on just what's wrong with their faces but their resemblance to the human form is long gone. Is this the ultimate achievement? Transcending the ageing process by becoming alien?

If you are female and worried about looking old, can I suggest the following: ask an Australian man what he thinks of Botox. Ask him what he thinks of the idea of the woman he loves injecting a paralysing toxin into her face in order to delete her expressions. Then try to remember you got your laugh lines from laughing. And that's a good thing.

Some role model

INSPIRATIONAL moment of my week: watching the MTV Australia Video Music Awards and seeing the rapturous faces of the young girls cheering for award presenter Nicole Richie . What a terrific role model for women everywhere, especially the young ones. It got better when she opened her mouth and said: "wassup bitches".

It's all in the numbers

WITH the election looming, here's a tip for Kevin and John: get yourselves a MySpace page. All the American politicians jockeying for presidential positions have one. As of last week the number of friends listed on their pages was: Barack Obama (pictured): 148,044. Hillary Clinton: 40,199. John McCain: 19,082. Poor Rudy Giuliani only had a couple of thousand.

© 2007 Sun Herald

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