What to Know
There was once a time when TV show actors had different looks, with crooked teeth (gasp), laugh lines (never!), and unique smiles that weren’t full of veneers or lip injections (say it ain’t so). More and more however, with beauty standards off the charts and so far gone that I can’t keep up with them from day to day, it’s hard to find that same uniqueness. So I’m inclined to agree with a woman by the name of Faith on TikTok. In her video, which was later shared to Reddit, she points out how different people, primarily women, look onscreen now versus before the early 2000’s.
She asks “what happened” to the “real faces” and whether or not the women in movies from the 80’s and 90’s would “pass for modern day beauty standards.” She points out the small imperfections in actresses and sheer differences in their faces back then versus now, when many seem to look to the same trends to keep their faces a certain way.
You’ll have to watch a movie or TV show from the 90’s or before to see “real faces” again.
@trainingforamazing I miss real faces on screen #beautystandards #plasticsurgery #feminist ♬ original sound – Faith
In her TikTok, Faith points out specific actresses whose faces have undergone the change from fresh-faced starlet to older, pulled skin, and plumped lips adult woman. And maybe the problem is really with Hollywood, and the need for actresses to keep up with what producers want. They then create these beauty standards that us normies feel we have to live up to. We, in turn, expect more of that from celebrities, and it’s a vicious, vicious cycle.
“We’ve known for a while that the proliferation of plastic surgery is becoming more embedded in our culture, but I don’t think we’ve really internalized how much it’s happening, until you start to look at groups of women that are taking up major space in pop culture, in society, and realizing that all of them, all of them, are having work done to themselves to the point that not only are they starting to look like each other, but that they’re not even looking like who they actually are,” Faith says in her video.
One of Faith’s points in her video is that celebrities’ faces once looked different from one another. Now, it’s easy to see a trend in certain fillers and procedures that celebrities of various calibers subscribe to.
“At the end of the day, our faces are our stories,” Faith says. “They are what’s passed down to us through generations. And if your face can’t move and you look like everyone else, what story are you telling?”
There’s something people call “iPhone face” and it makes a lot of sense.
@ayytrae the veneers always take me out of it #perioddrama #iphoneface ♬ original sound – Angelica Trae
iPhone face refers to actors who look out of place in a period movie or TV show because they have a face that looks too modern and like it has seen an iPhone before. In other words, there’s no way it can feasibly pass for a face that is actually from another era, even with makeup and lighting. In a Reddit thread about what an iPhone face actually looks like, users commented to say that sometimes, it’s the makeup. Other times, it’s modern day fillers that you see on Instagram models or influencers that look strange in a role that takes place in a totally different time period. The last time I checked, no one in the Elizabethan era had a full-on trout pout.
Other users pointed out veneers that totally change a person’s face. That also goes back to what Faith says in her TikTok. She mentions a “gummy smile” of an actress in a movie from the 80’s. Today, that would never fly, because of the perfectly uniform teeth and matching plumped lips that are everywhere. But, once upon a time, a legitimately natural look was what helped set strong actresses apart from other strong actresses.
