FACE

An in-depth examination of “why we should ever find an older face ‘horrible’ to begin with…and feel compelled to ‘fix’ it.”

In Fame (2018), Bateman deconstructed the flimsy edifice of celebrity. In this equally fiery and potent follow-up, she does the same for our notions of what constitutes a beautiful face. “When I was a smooth-skinned and plump-faced teenager,” she writes at the beginning of the book, “I really wanted to look like the older European actresses I saw in the Italian and French films of the 1960s and ’70s.” Examining her own experiences with how society viewed her as she moved from child actor to adult, she recounts how her pride and self-esteem faltered when she received public backlash about her appearance. She describes the book as “by no means an exhaustive exploration of “older women’s faces” in our current society. Instead, the book is a series of “47 short stories in which I have incorporated my experiences and feelings on the topic, and those of about 25 people I interviewed.” Occasionally disjointed, the narrative is most impressive in the aggregate, as women at all stages of life acknowledge and sometimes transcend societal views about women’s faces. By exploring the issue via multiple points of view, Bateman is able to show “many of the reasons for the negative attitudes regarding those faces” as well as the hypocrisy and double standards involved in such attitudes, especially in contrast with how aging men are often considered. Combining the author’s intensely personal stories with relevant examples from the culture at large, the book is heartbreaking and hopeful, infuriating and triumphant.

An engrossing look at an issue that continues to be problematic for millions of women every day.