Pouty, cartoonish and oddly androgynous: the cosmetic surgery aesthetic, as photographed by Phillip Toledano.
Click to, um, enlarge. Via Mr Eugenides. Welcome, Instapundit readers. The greatest hits and head enlargement may be of interest.
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Pod people?
Posted by: mlrosty | March 03, 2010 at 09:47
Two words. Transporter malfunction.
Posted by: Anna | March 03, 2010 at 11:59
I fail to see the attraction of the perma-pout. It's not her fault, but Angelina Jolie has probably ruined more faces than acne.
Posted by: Franklin | March 03, 2010 at 13:12
A while ago I was watching “The Incredible Hulk” and despite all the carnage and roaring I was still being distracted by Liv Tyler’s new lips. It looked like she’d been in a terrible accident prior to shooting, or a bar fight. Or maybe they’d been exposed to gamma rays after kissing Edward Norton.
Posted by: David | March 03, 2010 at 15:09
I really must remember not to browse from work.
*sigh*
Posted by: apotheosis | March 03, 2010 at 15:26
They're all cousins, right?
Posted by: sk60 | March 03, 2010 at 16:04
The progeny of cousins morelike...
Posted by: AC1 | March 03, 2010 at 16:07
I find it odd that people would actually WANT this as the end result. And that it will make them more beautiful somehow. Picking up a photo like this and saying "this is how I want to turn out". I know that when I see someone like that you immediately go "they've had surgery", because they just, you know, look 'off' somehow. I can just picture how the school children will laugh at their photos in social studies class 100 years from now.
Plus it's super creepy how they all have that similar underlaying look about them. Especially the guys with the pouty lip, it really looks like a genetic defect or injury.
Posted by: Chris S | March 03, 2010 at 16:33
Those are the biggest nipples I've ever seen. Sorry but it had to be said.
Posted by: John D | March 03, 2010 at 16:47
Avatar?
Posted by: The Wife | March 03, 2010 at 17:35
"Plus it's super creepy how they all have that similar underlaying look about them."
It's how the kids would look in a remake of Village of the Damned.
Posted by: Baltar's Beard | March 03, 2010 at 17:44
Funny, I originally thought these were "before" pictures. On a slow connection here and the source site was taking way to long to download, but I did read the front page with the "what is beauty" blather. Funny how these people get all intellectual-like about the definition of beauty as they make people uglier, but chop down a few trees and put a well designed land fill in their neighborhood and they're all up in arms. Why can't they see the "beauty" of an elegantly designed functional engineering project like that?
BTW, just Googled images for "face tattoo piercings". The eye of the beholder indeed...
Posted by: WTP | March 03, 2010 at 18:17
Are those really photographs? I'm serious. They look like drawings. Really really creepy drawings. Especially number three, in the Charles Nelson Reilly slot on the Match Game podium above.
Posted by: Rhodium Heart | March 03, 2010 at 21:05
"Chiseled" has only one "l".
Posted by: jgm | March 03, 2010 at 21:07
I was sure the first photo was of a woman. Until I spotted the stubble.
Posted by: The Colonel | March 03, 2010 at 21:12
jgm,
“‘Chiseled’ has only one ‘l’.”
If you’re using an American dictionary, yes, I’m sure it does.
Posted by: David | March 03, 2010 at 21:18
Looking through the photos the same basic 'face' crops up again and again, men or women. I wonder if they all went to the same surgeon or if that's the face most of us would end up with if we had heavy cosmetic surgery.
Posted by: Karen M | March 03, 2010 at 22:01
Karen,
Maybe it’s a combination of factors. The practical limits of how a face can currently be rebuilt seem an obvious consideration, and there seems to be a prevailing, idealised aesthetic. Conceivably, surgery might even have greater appeal to people with a certain range of pre-existing features. The androgyny, for instance, isn’t entirely a result of the surgery.
Posted by: David | March 03, 2010 at 22:10
CGI - Poser with some 'shop.
Posted by: CERDIP | March 03, 2010 at 22:13
"I was sure the first photo was of a woman. Until I spotted the stubble."
Doesn't mean it's a man. With these gender boundaries, anything goes.
Posted by: Cover Me, Porkins | March 03, 2010 at 23:14
Look, it's the Barbie People!
Posted by: Eric | March 04, 2010 at 07:16
Clearly the surgeon was a Boris Vallejo fan. Most of these people look like they should have "the Barbarian" after their name.
Posted by: Andrew Zalotocky | March 08, 2010 at 00:59