The rise of the childish nose
Why want Kate Middleton’s nose, of all things?
She’s a pretty young woman. But her face is lovely as a whole, and IMHO her nose is not her best feature, nor is it a particularly interesting example of its genre. It’s somewhat bland and a mite childish. But I suppose that’s what people want these days.
I’ve noticed both in life and on websites that what people request through plastic surgery is to look generically pretty rather than idiosyncratically gorgeous or elegant or distinctive or distinguished or even themselves. There are celebrities who defied the trend, though, and are the better for it. Streisand was one of the first, and Meryl Streep comes to mind too.
If you go to plastic surgery sites and look at the before/after photos, it’s clear that some people have very unfortunate “before” noses (and often the chins to go with them), and their desire for a fix is understandable, whether you approve or not. But the majority were fine before, and IMHO look worse afterward.
Take a look at the following, which are quite typical. The original noses look just about right for these women’s faces, distinctive and not the least bit disfiguring or Cyrano-like. Why would people with these noses go through the hassle and danger and expense of surgery? Is it just conformity to the childish ideal? It’s not that they look bad afterward; they just look homogenized. The last one in particular is puzzling:
You know I don’t really notice women’s noses. Or for that matter, men’s noses.
I often notice that worked-on nostrils show a little bit of shiny internal cartilage, which is something you don’t want to see.
You’re bringing back flash-backs — to my old high school.
Countless Jewish girls were getting ‘nose-jobs’ as their parental gift for their 16th birthday.
Without exception they went for the ‘Aryan nose’ / Hollywood special, aka ‘nose-bob.’ This was the procedure that Streisand famously declined. Obviously, she didn’t want to ‘pass’ which was the universal demand for the Jewish girls in my school.
There was a time four girls in one class were healing up at the same time.
You could buy a small car for the price their daddies were paying.
Since Hollywood was just over the hill, there was that aspect of it. My old school produced an Academy Award Winner or two. Mostly they pursued a top position, nailing down an MRS.
Many were destined to inherit.
Those were scary times, no doubt.
The ‘nose-jobs’ you’ve pictured are perfect examples of the art as I knew it.
It was a girls only procedure. I did not know of a single Jewish boy that had the least bit of cosmetic surgery.
It was an innocent time, before the pandemic of divorces.
marlo thomas (lebanese by ethnicity) had a nose job before embarking on her acting career !
Barbara Stanwyck left her nose proudly unaltered.
Blaise Pascal had it right in the seventeenth century: “Le nez de Cléopé¢tre: s’il eé»t été plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait changé.” (Somewhat free translation: “Cleopatra’s nose: had it been shorter, the whole aspect of the world would have been altered.”) Judged by the surviving coins that bear Cleopatra’s image, she had a Greek nose (completely straight from top to bottom when seen in profile), which both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony both admired. Hence if she had had the option of plastic surgery and had decided on a Kate Middleton-type nose . . . well, there goes a classic Shakespearean tragedy, not to mention the later Eddie Fisher/Liz Taylor/Richard Burton melodrama.
To guys, noses are like colors: we can tell the basic ones but all the subtle shades elude us.
The “After” noses shown by Neo all seem to have a slight ski-jump curve at their tips. A subtle upturning.
The best and brightest medical students are going into plastic surgery or dermatology, for two reasons 1) There will never be insurance issues for cosmetic stuff and 2) No emergencies, ever, so no night or weekend call. The only free market in medicine!
As you sit in an ER waiting room with a hundred people predominantly of color on Medicaid all watching TV, hoping to draw a semi-competent MD after a multi-hour wait, you can thank Obama and the democratics.
blert
It was a girls only procedure. I did not know of a single Jewish boy that had the least bit of cosmetic surgery.
Perhaps because Jewish boys already had some surgery very early in life. 🙂
In honor of nose jobs, here are the only two nose job songs I know of, separated by some 30 years.
Outside the Lines w guest singer/songwriter Emily Kaitz: (Mama what happened to) Susie Rosen’s Nose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCuiN2JnjpE She Got A Nose Job, by the Dellwoods: Mad Magazine Twists Rock n’ Roll 1961
I always like the scene in the 2nd Adams Family movie where Wednesday is pressured to tell a ghost story at camp. Her punch line which terrifies her fellow campers is, “And in the morning all their old noses had grown back”
From my male perspective generalized, we judge proportionality of size and symmetry for female beauty, but while we may notice nuance of shape and angles, we don’t particularly judge it.
Hi Neo,
Jumping bunnies, nose jobs. You always surprise and please. Eclectic. Protean. As to those childish noses. Why not? I think it goes well with the chirp. All young women seem to chirp now.
The purpose of the slight upturn (other than style) is to offset gravity and the next 10 years.
Every body part sags eventually. So, you start slightly lifted.
Noses hook as they sag.
Kate has her father’s nose. Check it out.
Does this have anything to do with the position of the apple in your photo, neo?
The girl in the third pairing was stunning before; looks like Snookie afterwards.
I knew a guy who had a very hooked nose; got it bobbed for showbiz, and it looked, I swear, like his face had been erased.
Neo,
Are you suggesting that opting for a Jimmy Durante schnoz would add character?
And what kind of nose is hiding behind that apple? 😉
OK, that’s it. After I sue you I’m going to go golfing.
I know the nose is bone and cartilage. But a small one, a button nose, an undistinguished nose, does not project character.
Possibly it’s a carryover from the fact that domesticated varieties of animals usually have less projecting faces and are seen as safer as opposed to their wild–dangerous–cousins.
See Mickey Mouse’s nose job. Steamboat Willie looked like a rate. He had to be infantilized.
I’ve noticed both in life and on websites that what people request through plastic surgery is to look generically pretty rather than idiosyncratically gorgeous or elegant or distinctive or distinguished or even themselves.
If a person is undergoing surgery due to social pressure, then they would not want to stick out. Keeping to social norms, the average, would be the best bet.
Very well. Dr Schlotkin, do your WORST.
Just leave metal out of them and they will be perfect.
I think the best example of unwarranted nose jobs is Jennifer Gray from “Dirty Dancing”. She had a perfectly fine yet distinctive nose that just set your look apart from every other girl. And then ruined it by getting a nose job and now she just looks like whoever.
blert and I may have gone to the same school in the Valley!
HeftyJo is right re Jennifer Gray: She even commented on what a disaster it was.
But Babs didn’t get a nose job not out some sort of sense of visual integrity/identity: She didn’t get it because they couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t alter her voice.
Or so I’ve heard. (And it makes sense to me, since you couldn’t guarantee such a thing.)