Have I let down the sisterhood by fixing the bags under my eyes? By Arabella Weir
After ridiculing female vanity in The Fast Show, the ‘Does My Bum Look Big In This?’ comedian reveals even she has succumbed to a 50-something nip-tuck and asks...
IABSOLUTELY love acting – creating a character, thinking of what she might wear and working out how she would do her make-up and hair. However, I’m no spring chicken and, as all we know, roles for ‘older women’ are few and far between these days.
That said, I have never been cast for my ‘beauty’. So as I’ve aged, I haven’t had to worry about losing my looks. Nonetheless, there’s no getting away from the fact that my appearance still matters.
As a feminist and the mother of a teenage girl, I’ve always been mindful of stressing the need to accept oneself as one is, to eat healthily and keep fit – but no more than that. Generally, I’ve been against the idea of pursuing perfection, particularly through cosmetic surgery.
I’ve tried to promote acceptance of all shapes and sizes and learning to live with the truth that only a fraction of the world’s women fit into the fashion world’s ‘ideal’.
And it was ‘outing’ my never-tiny bottom – by creating the catchphrase ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ for a character in TV comedy series The Fast Show – that finally led me to truly embrace the liberating power of that truth.
But a few years ago, I saw myself on television and to my surprise I didn’t think ‘I must lose weight’ or ‘Oh God, I look so old’. However, I did think: ‘The bags under my eyes are very noticeable.’
Now, all my family have bags – it’s a Weir thing. It’s the same for a lot of people, and that’s fine. However, they do not look great, whatever age or size you are, on screen.
In my case, the bags were pronounced enough to have formed a sort of mini-mountain range in the bottom of my eye socket, the peaks of which caught the light in a hugely unflattering way.
And because that’s how this sort of paranoia works, I decided that this ‘problem’ was stopping me getting more work than I would if I got rid of them.
EVERY single friend, both male and female, couldn’t see the problem. But one wise actor pal made a good point indeed when he said: ‘There’s no way of knowing if having them done will get you more work or not. You must have them done because that’s the right decision for you and not for some unknowable goal.’
He was right, and I think anyone contemplating a cosmetic operation must do as much internal examination of their own motives as possible. If you think surgery is going to make you happier, more popular or more fanciable, then I think that’s what therapists call ‘wrong thinking’ – believing outside forces can change who you are inside.
With all that very much at the forefront of my mind, I started researching on the internet – all the while, I should confess, not really believing I was ever actually going to go through with the operation.
My research quickly revealed that the remedy (I use that word advisedly) to the problem I’d identified is called blepharoplasty – the removal of eye bags. The discovery that the procedure is pretty swift and not really invasive drew me in further. So, still not at all convinced I was going to do it, I decided to just casually look at some prices and then, again only casually, see what I could find out about surgeons.
Now be warned: this opens up a huge can of worms. You might as well put ‘plumber’ or ‘boyfriend’ into a Google search box – without a personal recommendation, it’s difficult to discern between one surgeon and another.
So I asked a friend whose mother is a doctor how I’d go about beginning to pick a surgeon, and she gave me two names. For nearly a year I did nothing. I couldn’t get my head around the idea that I was going to do something like this, not least because my daughter asked me quite snippily: ‘How does this fit into your feminist principles?’
I didn’t really have an answer.
Then one day, out of the blue, I surprised myself by picking up the phone and making appointments with the two recommended surgeons. I was still pretty confident that I was only going to get more information about the procedure and the recovery time. I now see that I was hoping all this information would put me off, rather than encourage me to take the plunge.
To my delight, I was able to write off the first one because, unbidden, he suggested that I have much more done than my eyes. My resolve not to have anything done stiffened.
But then I met the next surgeon, Rajiv Grover, who was so professional and elegant that before I’d even finished describing what I saw as my problem, he immediately told me that I ought to go to the top ‘eye guy’ in the country, Professor Richard Collin. And so I did. Once I’d met Prof Collin, who consults at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and privately in Harley Street, all doubts flew out of the window.
He described the operation in minute detail: the bottom eyelid is held open with tiny clamps to give access to the pockets of fat (my mini-mountain range), which are then broken up with a scalpel. Some of the fat is taken out while the rest is spread out to fill out the eye socket so the patient isn’t left with a hollow, sunken look. It could be done under local anaesthetic and as a day
patient. And that was it. On the day, I was nervous. Horror-movie stills flashed through my mind – the idea of having your eye fiddled about with while awake does conjure them up. But the wonderfully soothing Prof Collin calmed me down.
The whole operation took less than an hour and I was awake, if a little woozy, throughout.
Compression bandages were then placed over my eyes for a couple of hours while I rested. After they were removed, one of my best friends came to pick me up, and as she walked into the room she helpfully remarked that I looked as if I’d gone ten rounds with a boxer.
I was very bruised and swollen but only around the eyes. It wasn’t painful, although there was a bearable degree of discomfort for a few weeks afterwards.
The most inconvenient bit of the whole thing, I found, was the antibiotic drops I had to apply twice a day for a week – it was rather fiddly and I’m not very patient.
My children didn’t like the sight of me, and who can blame them? The bruising and swelling went after a couple of weeks and I’d say I was back to normal after six weeks.
It took a few months to fully realise the positive effects of the operation. There was no transformation, just light intervention. I’m confident I don’t look as if I’ve had anything done. But I never lie – I always tell people what I’ve done, assuming they’re interested, of course. I don’t tell random strangers!
But nearly three years on, I still appreciate the absence of the mini- mountain range and believe its removal has made a big difference.
I would never tell someone they ought to have surgery but I’m glad I did this. I do think I look better on camera, and that, in turn, makes me more confident.
Have I betrayed the sisterhood? I don’t think so. I’ve made my peace with my feminist principles by being completely open. If anyone ever says I look good, I reply: ‘Well, I’ve had my eyes done.’
It’s partly so I play my part, if that doesn’t sound too pompous, in debunking the whole aspiring-to-beperfect thing that women, and young girls in particular, are subjected to.
No one’s perfect and if they are lucky enough to look as if they are (particularly beyond a certain age), then it’s extremely likely someone gave them a big helping hand.
Afterwards a friend helpfully remarked that I looked like I’d gone ten rounds with a boxer