In the course of the much derided interview with the French Marie Claire in which Demi Moore characterized rumors that she had ever had any cosmetic surgery as ‘completely false,’ Moore also bemoaned the familiar, age-old double standard by which ageing male actors ‘seem to get classier than us when they age.’ Mature actors in Hollywood, noted Moore, are seen as ‘distinguished.’
Men
become distinguished as they age, that is to say that age makes them
‘prominent, conspicuous, remarkable, or eminent;’ people whom we ‘notice
specially; pay particular attention to’ or ‘honour with special attention.’ To
distinguish also means ‘to perceive distinctly or clearly (by sight, hearing,
or other bodily sense); to ‘make out’ by looking, listening, etc.; to
recognize.’ To be distinguished is
to be recognized. Not only does
the process of becoming distinguished become synonymous with being celebrated,
it becomes synonymous with being seen at all.
In
a spread entitled “Celebrities Who Are Aging Well’ in the Winter-Spring 2009
issue of New Beauty magazine, the
faces of several female celebrities are analyzed. The piece opens by noting
that the women featured – including Olivia Newton-John and Demi Moore - have
successfully ‘tackled common aging concerns, all while looking gracefully
age-appropriate’ (40).
The homogenizing effects of the anti-ageing procedures promoted by New Beauty and widely used by female celebrities are criticized for exactly this, that they efface faces, making those faces indistinguishable from one another. In these attempts to defy ageing, celebrities may be subverting the very idea of celebrity. The undistinguished is one not recognized as different or distinct; further, the indistinguishable (i.e. the ‘imperceptible’) has not only the preceding quality, but goes unrecognized and unseen altogether.
