‘A
picture paints a thousand words.’ Do you remember that old dog? It sort of went
along with the ‘pictures don’t lie’ thing; the definitive proof about how
awesome, or god awful, that dress looked on you, and whether or not your butt
looked big in it. There was a time when, if all else failed, the picture was
the proof needed.
Once
again, in our quest for all things perfect, in a society where almost is never
good enough anymore, where human frailty and humanity take a back seat on the
bullet train to our own manufactured hell, honesty bears the scars of
collateral damage. I blame Nixon for this... well, in my little world where
it’s nice to have a face to throw darts at, I blame Nixon for it. I know he
wasn’t the first manipulator but he certainly made the activity a household
notion. There is a blemish on a piece of audio tape? Just get rid of it.
There’s a zit on Britney’s face? Get rid of that, too. I mean, what’s the
little airbrushing of wrinkles in the grand scheme of things? It’s a simple
activity... although in its very essence, it’s a lie. What’s wrong with there
being a wrinkle on a model? Why can’t bad-girl Britney have a zit on her chin?
She’s human. We all get them.
As
I watch my Facebook ticker scroll by, I see the photoshop creations. Yes, I am
guilty of them, too, although at least I know that no one would believe my face
on Katherine Zeta-Jones’ body, so there is no point in taking the time to do
it. Lol cats and Sheldon Cooper’s Big Bang memes aside, why are we so obsessed
with, well, perpetrating continual lies about who, or what, we are? Do we
really see each other as such colossal idiots that we can believe in all these
perfect bodies and immaculate complexions? More importantly, as a woman of
advancing years, who am I supposed to believe? The make-up company that tells
me their products will erase the years from my face, or the magazine photos
that show me it can be done with a click of a button – as long as I intend to
never show my ‘real’ face in public?
Richard
Nixon’s wrinkle in time was proof positive that we can no longer believe what
we hear with our own ears. I wonder what he would have done before his big ‘I
am not a crook!’ speech if he had known he could also erase the lines from his
face and the bags from under his eyes. Would we have believed him more? Would
photos be the next tool in his arsenal of convenient manipulations?
No,
I don’t have a lot of photos of me around the house, because I don’t like what
they show me. I would rather know they are honest, than to have a hundred of
them stuck to my fridge, showing me what I want to see instead of what I am.
Perhaps that means I’m lazy, or perhaps it means that I don’t have the secret
service to do that dirty work for me (although, damn, looking at some of those
buff black-spectacled bods, it might be nice to see what they could do with me).
I would like to think it just means I am one of the few remaining wholesome
folks who knows, and accepts, that we grow older, that it shouldn’t be something
we’re embarrassed about, and that, at the very least, when I die people will be
able to say that my body was a bastion of brutal honesty. The truth isn’t
always pretty, but it certainly doesn’t deserve to be sacrificed on the
unattainable, unrealistic altar of perfection.
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