don't look at my side profile

all on the iPhone face, plastic surgery mania, and heritage

I never look at my friends when we’re taking pictures. When they turn their head towards me with a smile, I keep my eyes towards the camera. It’s odd, but as much as I’d love to have pictures of us smiling at each other, lost in the moment, I know that the second I see a picture with my side profile my heart will somewhat sink.

I’d like to think I’m not self conscious. I come off as intensely confident and unapologetic to others - which isn’t far from the truth. Whatever self-hate I was burdened with as a teenager, it’s been long gone. Sitting in my closer, collecting dust for all I know.

But my anxiety towards my side profile, particularly my nose, hasn’t exactly retired yet. Now, before you ask, there’s really nothing wrong with my nose. A very few number of friends are aware of my casual dislike for it, and are both confused and amused on why I hate it. Part of me knows I’d never get a nose job, but I’m not exactly sure if that’s because I’m content with my nose or because the post-surgery recovery looks brutal.

Or maybe there’s another reason for me keeping my features “as is”?

Quite recently, I found out that Emerald Fennell would be directing a new take on Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights. While I’ve never seen Fennell’s work (I know - tragic), I do know she’s the mind behind Promising Young Women and Saltburn, so I’m quite exited to see how the classic will turn out on screen. What I’m a little overwhelmed about is the cast.

I mean, the cast makes sense in a nepotism-lens way. Margot Robbie’s production company has collaborated with Fennell on her previous films, and will be doing the same for this one, and Jacob Elordi worked with her on Saltburn. The clique has been secured.

Yet, I’m not at all surprised to see the backlash she’s received for her casting choices.

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, both tanned Australian actors aged 27 and 34, are meant to play the lead roles of Heathcliff and Catherine, two teenagers in the wild, 19th-century Yorkshire moors. Again, Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, best known for their roles as Elvis and Barbie, are playing Gothic children.

Enter the whole concept of the “iPhone face”. The term, as you most likely already know, refers to the extremely modern, tweaked, perfect faces appearing in historical films. These actors seem out of place in their past setting, especially when modern makeup and hair is applied. Think Bridgerton season 3 makeup, or Dakota Johnson in Emma. Now it’s no secret that they’re all beautiful, but they’re not regal or timeless. Two somewhat important requirements for viewers to believe in the authenticity of the characters they’re portraying.

In a way, such castings seem to always help me with my own insecurity, because I know I owe my face to my ancestors, and not my surgeon. I know that when I look into the mirror, I see the result of generations of women’s hard labour. Nine months on nine months on nine months of work just simmering around my features.

Your face is a combination of thousands of years worth of people who loved each other's faces.

- Unknown

So while I might not yet be totally enamoured with my nose, I do adore the idea that my nose isn’t unique to myself, but rather the amalgamation of generations. I am not a blank page, waiting to be written by an anxiety-induced author during the realist era scraping by to reach his word count.

And maybe this is our claim to immortality? We aren’t all meant to create works of art re-published every few decades, or sitting in Parisian galleries. We aren’t meant to break a world record, or win a renowned prize. Maybe I will be remembered in the faces of all those after me, as I am the eulogy, the accolade of the faces before me.

When I see sierrabravee on TikTok posting “who knew that buying a coffee table book I thought was beautiful would help me heal my relationship with my body”, showing us beautiful paintings of the early renaissance, with all their curves and rolls and dimples and freckles. And when I see Bronte-Marie on TikTok caption her makeup video with “you figure out that modern blush trends aren’t flattering on round faces, so you start stealing blush placements from paintings instead”, showing magnificent paintings of pre-Raphaelite women. Well, when I see these women, looking behind them to the women before them, the women bearing their charming, alluring traits, instead of in front of them to see the professionals around them, those with decades of medicinal experience, I tend to think we must be doing something right.

I also remember Bella Hadid telling Vogue “I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors, I think I would have grown into it.” And I think about how quickly we shake parts of ourselves off. How quickly we rush to look palatable, to look easier on the eye. How we cut the seeds watered by our ancestors before they bloom.

And with that, I leave you with one of my favourite quotes of all time.

Give me a daughter with your stubborn heart, or your even temper. Give our children your dark-bright eyes, or your enchanted smile. So that even when we are gone, the world will find within them all of the reasons why I loved you.

―Nizar Qabbani

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As always, with love,

Anastasia