Like many, I’ve spent the last month thinking about Dune 2. Denis Villeneuve’s epic space opera brought back a sense of just how great cinema can be with a bang. With its eye-popping cinematography to its ear-worm-inducing performance, the film blew me away. But funnily enough, it was the teeth of some of the protagonists that really caught my attention. I hadn’t done it on purpose, but when Léa Seydoux appeared on screen with a gap between her front teeth, I realized I hadn’t seen that on an actress in a while. Not to mention, Zendaya has had her natural teeth throughout her rise to stardom over the past decade. It was an odd observation, perhaps, but when you realize how much Hollywood uses painfully obvious veneers, the inclusion of these two female chips felt like a breath of fresh air. It grounded the movie for me. Sure, we’re not in Arakis, but 10,000 years from now, I don’t imagine porcelain veneers will be so readily available.
When one thinks of veneers in the 2020s, an image comes to mind: an Instagram influencer, perhaps of the Love Island variety, with sparkling white teeth fresh from a low-cost dentist in Turkey. However, the creation of the dental procedure actually dates back to the 1920s and its origins lie in Hollywood. In 1928, Max Factor asked cosmetic dentist Charles Pincus to fix something makeup couldn’t – teeth. He discovered that by temporarily sticking denture powder to the teeth, he could change the way someone’s smile looked. Unlike today, these original veneers only lasted a day or two during filming, but are now a long-lasting feature of some of the world’s most beloved actors.
But why do I find myself noticing veneers and cosmetic procedures more now? I’m sure if I was watching a movie from the 1990s, a certain actor would have had some work done, but it’s rarely so obvious to me, not to mention it doesn’t put me off movies like plastic surgery today. It is clear what Jia Tolentino once called “Face of Instagram” has transcended fleeting trends. It affects how we watch movies and enjoy actors’ performances. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Over the past couple of years, audiences have taken to social media to complain about the lack of verisimilitude in film and television.
Last month, Anya Taylor Joy was the talk of the town because people thought she was wrong Menu (2022) and didn’t fit what a working-class girl should look like. When Cogency (2022) was released, audiences stated that Dakota Johnson felt wrong as she had an “iPhone face”. In 2023, the big hit Daisy Jones and the Six found to be comparable to Almost famous (2000), a film set in the 1970s. After the release of the final episode, audiences noted Daisy Jones that the look of the show seemed unrealistic. That’s amazing, considering the effort that went into making sure it looked accurate to the decade. The show’s costume designer spent about two years properly sourcing his fashions by visiting weekly flea markets and browsing thousands of items in vintage Etsy shops—so why can’t the public buy the show’s props?
To put it simply, our ability to play along with the imagination of film and television seems to be diminishing. “The awareness of cosmetic surgery today means the average person knows the time, money and effort it takes to look like a celebrity,” says beauty journalist and critic Jessica DeFino. “In terms of cinema, it’s meant to be this fantasy world, and beauty is also this fantasy world. Now, these two separate imaginaries collide to take us out of the moment.”
In one study examining 100 years of plastic surgery on the silver screenthe researchers concluded that the peaks of plastic surgery were most observed during the 1930s, 1960s and 2000s. These coincided with the beginning of new film eras – Golden Age, New Hollywood and Modern. It may be too early to declare a new cinematic age, but cinema and television have been inundated in the last twenty years with new technologies. HD cameras, in particular, are unforgiving of heavy makeup, dust, or skin textures that can be detected on screen. This created a challenge for actors and makeup artists to keep up with the facade of perfection. In 2010, New York Magazine reported how the rise of botox affected actors’ craft and led to polished performances. Today, the latest culprits are veneers and fillers, which can create an almost uncanny valley feeling. Ironically, this has become a trend at the same time as artificial intelligence and smooth glossy attempts to recreate art and movies, not to mention deepfakes. Nothing seems quite right anymore and no one can trust the media we’re looking at.
In one study, researchers concluded that the peaks of plastic surgery were most observed during the 1930s, 1960s and 2000s. These coincided with the onset of new film eras – Golden Age, New Hollywood and Modern. It may be too early to declare a new cinematic age, but cinema and television have been inundated in the last twenty years with new technologies.
Haaniyah Angus
We have landed in uncharted waters, and our discomfort in discovering how easily images can be falsified may be exactly what DeFino describes as the construction on display. “When cosmetic work is undetectable, we call it good work, and when cosmetic work is very obvious, we call it bad work. A person is supposed to be naturally beautiful, but bad work reveals that it is unnatural. It’s a construct and we call it bad because it’s exposed.” This is also related to the enforcement of gender structures. “We prefer the work to be good so we can perpetuate the idea that all women are naturally beautiful and should be naturally beautiful and can be judged on that.”
But what’s the line between cosmetic changes that affect your faith in an actor’s performance and accusing strangers of doing work in an attempt to embarrass them? Take Erin Moriartyfor example. Selfies posted on social media led people online to speculate that she had undergone plastic surgery and noticed changes to her face in the final season of The Boys. The concern, however, was not that she was changing how audiences viewed her character, but how she was affecting young women by doing so. The actress’ face became a topic of discussion for former Fox News pundit Megyn Kelly on her radio show, prompting Erin to face harassment and quit her Instagram. Male celebrities, on the other hand, are rarely ashamed of the work they’ve done. As actress Busy Phillips put it during an interview last week, it’s clear that the influx of superhero movies has led to an increase in male actors taking HGH (human growth hormones) and altering their appearance to look fitter after 40. Joe Jonas became the face of botox brand Xeomin in 2022, calling his take on beauty “genderless self-care.” Not to mention that man of the moment, Ryan Gosling showed up at the Oscars last month with cheeks fuller than they’ve ever been seen before, but it’s doubtful his filters will cause an uproar about how badly it’s affecting people .
Observing work on people’s faces is not inherently bad. We are human and we connect with people by observing how they present themselves to us. This is reinforced when we see close-ups of actors on screen and see billboards plastered all over. However, how we talk about cosmetic surgery must be separated from our current practice of placing actors in good or bad categories. Especially when we only take time to analyze how the women look and what new features they have upgraded this time around. When liposuction was all the rage a few years ago, the public took to social media to point out how haggard and old it made women look. Trying to deconstruct the oppressive nature of beauty standards through misogyny certainly won’t prevent stars from going under the knife, nor will it lead to productive conversations about how harmful they can be. As DeFino puts it, “We can note that a particular surgery or procedure is becoming the norm and talk about it from a detached political, historical perspective, rather than turning it into a moral crisis for one person.”
Judgment is the language of social media, but without it, what are our options? It is clear that audiences experience temporary distortion when watching period pieces with actors who have plump lips and stiff foreheads. It’s also more than clear that Hollywood isn’t abandoning its age-old practice of glitz and glam, no matter how much we condemn their newest fashions. Perhaps the two camps will battle it out in the latter part of the decade and we’ll reconvene in 2030 to name the winner. If not, the most boring option is to practice body neutrality and start getting into the habit of not paying attention to our appearance. Although it may seem small, if we do this in our personal lives it can positively affect the rest of us.
