Jennifer Lawrence at a red carpet premiere in October.
Photo: Getty Images
I could spend the rest of this story talking circles around the exact changes people have perceived in these women’s faces, but it would ultimately be beside the point. Because no matter how you slice and dice the speculation, going so far as to say that any of them have a “new face” is a wild exaggeration.
Hathaway, when she lets down those snatched updos, still has smile lines and a wrinkle here and there, and her eyelids appear slightly hooded rather than pulled back—like those of a typical (albeit very beautiful) 42-year-old. Lawrence’s eyes are as deep-set as ever, and her face has kept its rounded shape with full cheeks. Stone has certainly changed her eyebrow shape and, obviously, cut her hair short, but when I see her in motion in recent interviews (like this one with the BBC), I don’t see the drastic cosmetic transformation everyone else apparently does. When she laughs, her rounded cheeks push up toward her eyes, and her eyelids disappear into their natural hoods. Her forehead scrunches and relaxes when she inevitably makes a funny face or two. It doesn’t feel all that different from watching Easy A.
Are we not willing to accept that people’s faces are bound to change a little as they get older? Warranted, there are celebrities out there who do undergo drastic plastic surgery transformations that can be worth talking about in the right context. Kris Jenner did get what I think is fair to call a “new face;” hell, I mistook her for Kim Kardashian the first time I saw her post-facelift earlier this year. But making that leap for anyone whose face seems to have changed in tiny ways over a long period of time? It doesn’t account for the happenings of real life, like getting older. Or getting pregnant (Lawrence had a baby earlier this year, by the way). Or weight fluctuation, or medical conditions. It doesn’t even account for the simplest of factors, like using different makeup and hairstyling techniques. (Mara Roszak, hairstylist to actresses like Zoe Saldana, Stone, and Olivia Wilde, told Allure recently that for a “snatched” effect, she sometimes makes tiny hidden braids behind a client’s ears, pulls them up and back, and secures them behind the head.) Most of this “new face” discourse is simply not tethered to reality.
Hathaway at the Met Gala in May.
Photo: Getty Images
Hathaway at a WWD event in October.
Photo: Getty Images
It’s also a thinly veiled weapon of misogyny. Some women are praised for their so-called transformations, while others are shamed for doing too much for their faces. “I’ll have what she’s having” was a common sentiment when Hathaway went viral, but recent images of Stone posted by Roszak have drawn comments like “lol she doesn’t look like her anymore,” and “BRING BACK her unique face.” Either way, these women are held to narrow—and contradictory—parameters of what they ought to look like and what’s acceptable to do to your own face. It scares me to think that, if I were in their position at my current age of 31, I could just as easily be put on blast for having changed entirely simply because I tried something new with my look, went through something difficult that altered my appearance, or simply aged just enough for someone to notice (all of which I have done recently).
