Joanne Black
On television, the authenticity is in question of not only the message, but also the messengers.
Inoticed recently while watching CNN that I was not taking in a single thing the reporters said because I was busy analysing their cosmetic procedures. Most of the women, and many of the men, have foreheads that do not move.
I became so obsessed with this that I stood in front of the mirror and practised saying, “One of US President Donald Trump’s closest advisers appeared in court today …”, to see if it was possible to frown without puckering my forehead. It was not. Nor could I raise my eyebrows while saying, “Congressional aides failed to make any progress today …”, without also having crease lines across my forehead.
I invite you to try the same exercise but recommend you do it when home alone, unless you have a particularly understanding partner. My point is that CNN reporters can animatedly announce and impart anything while maintaining foreheads that appear to be made of concrete.
In addition, one political reporter has lips that are, from time to time, so engorged that I am sure she is going to fail to get her words out like someone tripping over their too-big shoes. She has not stumbled so far but nor can I remember a single thing she has talked about – I have been too busy concentrating on the process of articulation.
How did it happen that what is natural, such as grey hair and an expressive face, has come to be considered by many to be undesirable? Meanwhile, the palpably fake – a forehead with early-onset rigor mortis, say, or, the standout example, Kim Kardashian’s backside – has become, to some, desirable?
It is a human tendency to create and improve, or at least to plain meddle. And it is human, too, to be more confident when we feel we are looking good.
However, as with almost everything human, there seems to be no off switch and an increasingly narrow idea of what is desirable. The “look” is promoted by “influencers”, some celebrities and anyone who can make a buck out of denying what should be obvious to us all – that natural bodies are less expensive, more diverse and usually more attractive than artificially manipulated ones.
Walking through my local park last weekend, I came across a couple walking a large dog, carrying a toddler and pushing a rattling pink plastic bike. A woman coming the other way stopped and greeted them. “Oh,” she said, “so Taco is coping with the new bike?”
I thought for a second that Taco might be the toddler but at the mention of “Taco”, the dog looked up and started wagging its tail.
“Not just this bike,” the man said proudly. “All bikes now that he’s on Prozac.”
I walked on thinking this might have been one of those “only in America” moments.
That night, I was at dinner at the home of friends who had gone to Spain for Christmas. Before the kennels would take their dog, Darcy, she had to go for an afternoon’s assessment.
Darcy is a highly strung animal. For example, she is regularly stranded on rugs because she is anxious about floorboards. Living without her people is more than she can cope with, as the kennels immediately discovered.
They would take her, they said, but only on condition that she was medicated for her anxiety. So my friends spent two weeks on holiday in Spain while Darcy spent two weeks on Xanax at the kennels.
Where I grew up, troublesome dogs got a bullet. Now they get a prescription. Surely that is progress.
My friends were on holiday in Spain while their dog was on Xanax at the kennels.