COMMENTARY
STACEY MORRIS
Published in The Post-Star newspaper 9/19/02
Finally, an actress who gives us the truth.
Someone in the entertainment industry who not only 'fesses up to having multiple cosmetic procedures done to her face and body, but who also concedes to regret.
If you haven't already heard, Jamie Lee Curtis is the current cover girl for More magazine, a monthly aimed at women over 40.
More's headlines blared the obvious -- that Hollywood's myth of physical perfection is a fraud.
That's a fact that isn't exactly a secret, but it's nice to see a woman in show business speaking so openly about it.
And the 43-year-old Curtis does more than talk about it.
She puts her money where her mouth is, or in this case, where her love handles and back fat are.
In the magazine, Curtis gives a candid interview and poses for some daringly unretouched photos.
For once, they are magazine photos not manipulated by lighting or angles. And they offer a surprising revelation to anyone who remembers the actress' bombshell striptease scenes in "True Lies" that there's a little more of her to love these days.
"I have a soft, fatty little tummy and back fat," she states frankly in the interview.
Not that there wasn't a time in her life when she didn't try to reverse the tide.
"I've done it all," said Curtis of the plastic surgery gamut. "None of it works."
At the root of all the surgical procedures, according to a recent interview she gave the BBC, was her desire, from an early age, "to look and be like other people."
In other words -- like so many of us who came of age gazing at glossy magazine covers with a flawless supermodel staring blankly back at us or sitting in a darkened theater while the celluloid perfection and see-through-thinness of Michelle Pfieffer flickered across the screen -- she didn't like herself.
More honestly, she probably despised what she saw in the mirror.
Unfortunately, there are probably more people in society (of all ages) who identify with her feelings than those who find appearance-loathing a foreign concept.
And now, thanks to the profusion of plastic surgeons about the country, there's no shortage of ways the average person can try to fix themselves.
Haven't you heard? Plastic surgery's the new dieting.
There was a time when it was mainly a hobby of the rich and famous, but no more. The ads are everywhere and all a working-class person has to do is sock a little money away and it's done.
Would I ever do it?
At the age of 38, my answer is more inclined to be a "probably not." But who knows?
Once I hit 60, I could have a change of heart.
I'm not saying plastic surgery is patently a bad choice, but like dieting or sun-tanning or piercing, there can come a point where it becomes habit-forming (just ask Burt Reynolds), a pseudo-solution for low self-esteem.
I think what Curtis is trying to say about plastic surgery is A) it's no substitute for self-acceptance; B) genetics and the passage of time will ultimately have their way with you; and C) therefore, loving yourself is a lot more cost-effective.
So Jamie Lee Curtis' confessions and revelatory photographs are a great beginning for anyone attempting to deprogram themselves from the impossible standards sent our way from Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
I have to applaud her unflinching brazenness -- and not just for the magazine piece.
Even in her junket of TV interviews, I've seen the actress, sans a speck of make-up, dark circles popping out from beneath her brown eyes, as she animatedly lists all her cosmetic surgery procedures.
And yes, as with most magazine covers, there's some very deliberate cross-promotion on the agenda -- coincidentally, Curtis has a new children's book out.
But the message of both magazine story and book is so positive and needed, I forgive her for trumpeting a woman's issue to promote her book.
By the way, Curtis (who's written several children's books) says she always makes her books "adult-friendly."
Good -- because I like the title of her latest book and I may just have to go out and buy it: "I'm Gonna Like Me: Letting Off a Little Self-Esteem."