The Mythology of the Face-lift

Author(s): WENDY DONIGER

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Social Research, Vol. 67, No. 1, Faces (SPRING 2000), pp. 99-125
Published by: The New School
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971380 .
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The Mythology
of the Face-lift / BY WENDY DONIGER
¿

Jl ace-lifts, and surgical procedures to make the face look

younger,are nothingnew. Medical techniques that have made
them a realityare fairlyrecent,but mythologicaltextsspanning
manycenturiesand manycultures(fromancient India to Holly-
wood) have imagined what the consequences mightbe if those
who wishedfora newface were to get whattheywishedfor. Con-
temporaryaccountsof cosmeticsurgerydifferin manywaysfrom
mythologicaltreatmentsof the theme; where the modern tech-
nique constructsa new face ex nihilo, most mythsimagine the
exchange of one face foranother,existingface. Both setsof sto-
ries,however,frequentlyexpress the desire to have notjust any
face but one's own face as it once was in the past- to masquerade
as one's youngerself,as it were. And the myths,at least,demon-
stratethatthisis a foolish,impossible,or even fataldesire. It is
mycontentionthatthe mythsare right,and thatthe lessons they
teachshould be takenseriouslybypeople contemplatingreal,sur-
gical face-lifts.

Face Liftsand Incest: Indian and Inuit Myths

Manymythsabout face-lifts wereconceivedbyculturesfarfrom

the worldsof cosmeticsurgeryin Europe or the United States.
Here is a storyfroma late medievalIndian Sanskrittext:

The Goddess Sloughs Her Skin

One day the god Shiva teased his wife,the goddess Parvati,
about her darkskin;he called her "Blackie"(Kali) and said

SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Spring 2000)

100 SOCIAL RESEARCH

thather dark body againsthis whitebody was like a black

snake coiled around a pale sandalwood tree. When she
respondedangrily, theybegan to argue and to hurlinsultsat
one another. Furious,she wentawayto generateinnerheat
in orderto obtaina fair,golden,skin. Her littleson Viraka,
stammering in histears,beggedto come withher,butshe said
to him,"This god [Shiva] is a woman-chaser when I am not
here, and so you must constantlyguard his door and peep
throughthe keyhole,so thatno otherwomangetsto him."
Eventuallythe god Brahma came to her and granted
her wishto have a golden body and to become halfof Shiv-
a's body,in the formof the androgyne. She sloughed off
fromher body a dark woman, named Kali, who wentaway
to live in the mountains. Parvati,now in her golden skin
(Gauri, "The Fair" or "The Golden"), wenthome, but her
son Viraka,who did not recognize her,stopped her at the
door, saying,"Go away! You cannot enterhere. The only
one who can enterhere is mymother,Parvati,who lovesher
son dearly." Parvatisaid to her son, "Viraka,I am your
mother;do not be confusedor mistakenin yourmind. Do
not doubt me, myson, or be misledbymyskinor mylimbs;
Brahma made me golden." The Goddess then returnedto
Shiva,and theymade love togetherformanyyears.1

Parvatiis a woman dividedagainstherself- or,rather,a woman

forcedbyher husband to divideherselfinto twopolarized halves.
Shiva likensher to a black snake when he teases her,and like a
snake she sloughsoffher black outersheathto revealher golden
innerform. The creationof a double is her solutionto the prob-
lem of Shiva's womanizing (more precisely, goddessizing);
insultedand rejected,she walksout on her unfaithful, hyper-crit-
ical husband. But she does not stayawayforlong: Eventuallyshe
sends back a more acceptable formof herself,the golden god-
dess. The chopped off", negativeKali is banished to the liminal
area of the VindhyaMountains (the southernregion that com-
posers of the ancient Sanskrittextsin the northwestof India
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 101

regarded as beyond the Hindu pale, the place to dump things

that you did not want in the storyany more); the remaining
golden formbecomes the female half of the androgyne. I have
discussedelsewhere(Doniger,2000) the apparentlyracistaspects
of thismyth;ancient Indian authorsdid not have a recognizable
concept of race, thoughtheydid have negativeideas about peo-
ple withdark skin,whom theysometimesregardedas lower-class
or even out-caste. But we cannot ignore the parallels withthe
uses of cosmeticsin our own day to change characteristics stereo-
-
typicalof race hair straightening, lightmakeup,and, of course,
the surgicaltransformations of MichaelJackson.
Viraka'sfailureto recognizehis motherwhenshe returnsseems
to be superficial - she has changed the color of her skin- but it
has deeper,darkerovertones,forhe knowshis motherloves him
(as he himselfsays)and thiswoman has rejectedhim and lefthim
behind. The failure of a son to recognize his mother often,
thoughnot in the mythof Parvati/Kali,leads to incest;it results
in incest,for instance,in the ancient tale of Kutsa (O'Flaherty,
1985, pp.75-6). This same failureof a son to recognizea mother
stemsfromincestin an Inuit myththatgivesa new meaning to
the "lift"in "face-lift,"
forin thistale a mother"lifts"her daugh-
ter-in-law's face in the sense of stealing it, as in "shop-lifting."
Moreover,she also attemptsto "lift"her daughter-in-law's hus-
band, her own son. This is a storyabout Kiviok,an immortalwho
is said to have gone southon a ship afterthewhitemen arrivedin
the Arcticbut to be readyto come back when he is needed. His
mostrecentmanifestation was around 1979,whena Russiansatel-
lite threatenedto fall on Baker Lake, a small communityon the
Hudson's Bay. Kiviokis said to have harpooned the satelliteout
of the skydown into northernManitoba,thussavingthe commu-
nity(Robin McGrath,1990). We mightcall thismyth

The WomanWho Stole Her Daughter'sFace

[Kiviokcame to a land where therewere only two people,

an old lady and her daughter. He marriedthe daughter,
102 SOCIAL RESEARCH

but one day while he was out hunting,the old lady killed
the daughterand skinnedher head down to the neck. She
pulled her daughter'shead skin over her head to fool her
son-in-law,]so she would look like her daughterand could
marryKiviok. [When Kiviokapproached, the old lady put
on the head and walked to meet him, but] because her
looks didn't reallychange, she could stillbe recognizedas
an old lady. [He told her to removeher kamiks,and] when
she did, her legs were skinnyand brownlike straw. [After
she told Kiviokwhatshe had done, Kiviokmarriedthe old
lady,but not for long. He lefther to go back to his par-
ents.] (Kalluak, 1974, pp. 18-21)

In contrastwiththe tale of Parvati,thisis an anti-face-lift

myth.
but he can tell the difference
Kiviok is fooled by the face-lift,
betweenthelegs ofan old womanand a youngone. Anothervari-
ant of the mythcontrastswiththe face notjust the legs but the
body as a whole:

Kivioqcame to be veryfondofhisyoungwife,and was there-

foreverymuch surprisedwhen he came home one day and
foundonlyone of thewomen. Her facewas exactlylikethat
ofhiswife,butherbodywasshrunkenand bony.Thus he dis-
coveredthatitwas the old womanwho had killedher daugh-
terand pulled herskinon overher own. Kivioqthenleftthat
place and wenthome to hisownvillage.He rowedand rowed
and at last recognisedhis own village,and when he recog-
nisedit,he fellto singing(Rasmussen,1932,p. 289).

Again the mother'smasquerade is literallyonlyskindeep, and

quicklypenetrated. Yet another version has been wonderfully
retoldbyAnnie Dillard:

A young man in a strangeland fallsin love witha young

woman and takesher to wifein her mother'stent. By day
the women chew skinsand boil meat while the youngman
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 103

hunts. But the old crone isjealous; she wantsthe boy. Call-
ing her daughter to her one day,she offersto braid her
hair; the girl sitspleased, proud, and soon is strangledby
her own hair. One thingEskimosknow is skinning. The
mothertakesher curvedhand knifeshaped like a dancing
skirt,skinsher daughter'sbeautifulface, and presses that
emptyflapsmoothon her own skull. When the boy returns
thatnighthe lies withher,in the tenton top of the world.
But he is wet from hunting; the skin mask shrinksand
slides,uncoveringthe shriveledface of the old mother,and
the boy fleesin horror,forever(Dillard, 1975, p. 273).

FarleyMowat,on whose tellingDillard based her own,phrases

the centralincidentlike this: "He had gotwetduringthe day,and
themoistureshrunkthefalseskinon the old woman'sface so that
it all splitand came off' (Mowat,1952, p. 159). Dillard tellsthis
storyin answerto the question thatshe poses: "Is beautyitselfan
intricately fashionedlure, the cruelesthoax of all?" The implicit
answerto thisquestion- Yes!- revealsthe futility of the face-lift.

SloughingOffImmortality

In some variantsof this myth,the sloughing of the skin- a

thatis meant to restoreyouth-
major ingredientin the face-lift
bringsnot youth,but death. SirJamesGeorge Frazercitesa vari-
ant fromthe CentralCélibes:

The Grandmotherwho Sloughed her Skin

In old timesmen,like serpentsand shrimps,had the power

of casting their skin wherebytheybecame young again.
There was an old woman who had a grandchild. Now the
old womanwentto thewaterto bathe and she hung her old
skin upon a tree. When she returnedto the house her
grandchildkept saying: "You are not mygrandmother, my
104 SOCIAL RESEARCH

grandmotherwas old and you are young." Then the old

woman went back to the waterand drew on her old skin
again (Frazer,1950, 1,p. 70).

On the surface,thisis about the surface,the skin,but whatis at

stake runsfardeeper- death. Frazer cites other mythsverylike
thisone, includingone fetchingly entitled,"The CompositeStory
of the PervertedMessage and the Cast Skin." Anotherstoryin
thisserieswas recorded in 1909:

To Kabinana and To Karvuvuare brothers. Their mother

had cast her skinand now she was a younggirlonce more.
But To Karvuvucriedhe would not have his motherlikethis
and he broughther old skinback again. To Kabinana said:
"Whyhave you put the old skinback again on our mother?
Now the serpentswill cast theirskin and our descendants
willdie!" (Frazer,1950, 1,p. 74; Meier,1909, 1,p. 39)

Several other versions,fromTanna in New Hebrides and the

AdmiraltyIslands,also depict a son who rejectshis motherwhen
she sheds her skin ("I don't knowyou.. ..You are not mymother"
[Roheim, 1940, p. 20]). In retrospect,we can see that the ver-
sion fromthe Célibes simultaneouslydistancesand exaggerates
the problem by making the older woman not a mother but a
grandmother,and erases the overtonesof incest by makingthe
younger person not a son but a child of unspecified gender.
The psychoanalyticalanthropologistGeza Roheim glosses these
storiesfor us: "A child or grandchild refusesto recognize the
rejuvenatedgrandmotheror mother in the young woman. In
the last version quoted above and belonging to this group the
difficultylies in the Oedipus complex. If motherswere to cast
theirskinsand hence mankindwere to live forever,sons would
want their mothers for their wives- hence we must die"
(Roheim, 1940, p. 21). As in the Hindu and Inuit myths,the
face-liftconfuses the generations in such a way as to foster
incest.
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 105

Malinowskirecordeda relatedmythfromtheTrobriandislands
which spells out, at least in Malinowski'sretelling,the implica-
tionsforthe originsof death:

The Animalsof the Below and the Above

Aftera span of spiritualexistence in Tuma, the nether

world,an individualgrowsold, grey,and wrinkled;and then
he has to rejuvenateby sloughing his skin. Even so did
human beings in the old primevaltimes,when theylived
underground. When theyfirstcame to the surface,they
had not yet lost this ability;men and women could live
eternallyyoung.
however,by an apparentlytrivial,
They lost the faculty,
yetimportant and fatefulevent. Once upon a time there
livedin thevillageofBwadela an old womanwho dweltwith
her daughterand granddaughter;threegenerationsofgen-
uine matrilinealdescent. The grandmotherand grand-
daughterwentout one day to bathe in the tidalcreek. The
girlremainedon the shore,whilethe old womanwentaway
some distanceout ofsight. She tookoffher skin,whichcar-
ried by the tidal current,floated along the creek until it
stuckon a bush. Transformedinto a younggirl,she came
back to her granddaughter.The latterdid not recognize
her; she was afraidof her,and bade her begone. The old
woman, mortifiedand angry,went back to her bathing
place, searched for her old skin, put it on again, and
returnedto her granddaughter.This time she was recog-
nized and thus greeted: "A young girl came here; I was
afraid;I chased her away."Said the grandmother:"No, you
didn'twantto recognizeme. Well,you willbecome old- I
shall die." They went home to where the daughter was
preparingthe meal. The old woman spoke to her daugh-
ter: "I went to bathe; the tide carried myskin away;your
daughterdid not recognizeme; she chased me away. I shall
106 SOCIAL RESEARCH

not slough myskin. We shall all become old. We shall all

die."
Afterthatmen lostthe powerofchangingtheirskinand
of remainingyouthful.The onlyanimalswho have retained
the power of changing the skin are the "animals of the
below"- snakes,crabs,iguanas,and lizards: thisis because
men also once livedunder the ground. These animalscome
out of the groundand theystillcan change theirskin. Had
men lived above, the "animalsof the above"- birds,flying
foxes,and insects- would also be able to change theirskins
and renewtheiryouth(Malinowski,1926,pp. 103-5).

This variantblames women,as usual, fordeath and goes on to

divide the blame betweenthe foolishyoungwoman and the vin-
dictiveold woman (the mother,cited in the beginning,vanishes,
leaving the generations on both sides to fightit out); in an
attemptto solvethe problemof old age, thewomen inadvertently
inventdeath. The disguisedgrandmotherin thisstorymightlead
us to viewthe storyof Red Riding Hood in a new light,not as a
conflictbetween the kindlygrannyand the wickedold wolf,but
as a conflictwithingrannyherself,who has her ownbig teethwith
whichto devourher littlegranddaughter.

VictorianExchanges

Some of these mythsimagine the transpositionof not merely

the face but the entirehead (as in the ancient Indian tale of the
transposedheads, told of both women and men [Doniger,1999,
pp. 204-259]) , while others,such as the Inuit mythof Kiviok,
more preciselytargetthe face as the locus of the transformation.
Storiesof both types,however,expressa deep distrust, sometimes
a
even terror, of the magic powers that make these transforma-
tions possible. This fear was also voiced, in a differentkey,by
nineteenth centuryVictorian novels that sounded a warning
againstthe science of theirtime: MaryShelley'sFrankenstein, Or
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 107

theModernPrometheus (1818) against galvanismand dissection,

RobertLouis Stevenson'sTheStrangeCase ofDr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde
(1887) against psychotropicdrugs, and Bram Stoker's Dracula
(1897) againstblood transfusions and hypnosis. A novella from
this period and genre, though French rather than English,
Théophile Gautier's 1856 Avatar,is about the transferof a soul
fromone body to another,whichmightjust as well be viewedas
the transferof a face fromone soul to another:

Avatar

Octavius de Saville was in love withPrascovia,the wifeof

Count Olaf Labinski; but she, being chaste, rejected him.
Doctor BalthazarCherbonneau,who had studiedformany
years in India, put Octavius's soul in Olafs body (now
referredto as Octavius-Labinski)and the reverse(Olaf-de
Saville)- each now designated,in the text,bythe soul's first
name and the body'slastname. The wifeimmediatelyreal-
ized thather husband had someone else's soul in him,pre-
ciselybecause he lustedafterher as her husband neverdid,
and she locked him out of the bedroom. Olaf-de Saville
challenged Octavius-Labinskito a duel. Each one experi-
enced a wave of terroras he was about to plunge his sword
into thebodythathe had inhabiteduntilthe daybefore,an
act thatfeltlike a kind of suicide. But since Olaf-deSaville
wanted to destroythe body that mightdeceive Prascovia,
heedless of the danger to himselfhe "lunged straightin
order to reach, throughhis own body,his rival'ssoul and
life." Octavius-Labinski, however,eluded Olaf-de Saville's
thrustand disarmedhim (remarkingthatOlaf,whose body
he wore,was by farthe betterswordsman), but refusedto
killhim because, he said, "That death,even thoughunreal,
would plunge mydear motherinto the deepest grief."
Then Octavius-Labinskisaid to Olaf-de Saville, "I am
going to restoreyour body to you, for Prascoviadoes not
love me. Under the appearance of the husband she recog-
108 SOCIAL RESEARCH

nised the lover's soul." They went togetherto Dr. Cher-

bonneau, who put Olafs soul back in Olafs body. But Dr.
Cherbonneau allowed Octavius's soul to escape, so that
Octavius died (or, at least, Octavius's body died). Then
Cherbonneau made a will,bequeathing all of his property
to Octaviusde Saville,and put his own soul into Octavius's
body,allowing his own senile body to die. Appearing as
Octaviusde Saville (though,in reality,Balthazar-deSaville),
he attended the funeral of Dr. Balthazar Cherbonneau.
Olaf Labinskireturnedto his Countess,who at once recog-
nized her beloved husband (Gautier,1856, pp. 1-89).

The soul gets starbillingboth in the plot and in the names-

hyphenatednot by marriagebut by transmigration. The protago-
nistwantsto possessthewomannot withhis face butwithhis soul,
although,since he also wishes to possess her physically, he also
needs his rival'sface. Prascovia,however,rejectshis soul and rec-
ognizesthe impostorfortheveryreasonthathe became an impos-
tor: He wantsher.
These themesare further developedin anotherFrenchvarianton
thetheme,MauriceRenard'snovelLe docteur Leme,sous-dieu(1919),
whichgivesnot the soul but the brain a new face. An old man,
rejectedby the younggirlhe loves,surgicallyexchangeshis brain
withthatofhisyoungnephew.Againtheruseis detectedand there
is a duel; theuncle stopshisnephewfromkillinghimbyexclaiming,
"Mydear friend,ifyou do thatyou willkillyourself!" The double
confronts himselfand cannotallowhissoul to killhisbody;thedou-
blingthatwas intendedto winsomethingnewforthe lover(a new,
betterface,and the object of his love) turnsout to deprivehim of
whathe has (his ownface,and ultimately his life).

Face-Liftsin Contemporary
English
and JapaneseLiterature

an episode of plastic
In Angela Carter's novel WiseChildren,
surgeryoccurs when a man named Genghis Khan, who has
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 109

recentlydivorcedhiswife,is about to remarrya younggirlnamed

Dora; but his ex-wife,stillin love withhim, replaces Dora at the
altar. Dora tellsthe story:

Mrs.GenghisKhan

I thoughtI'd gone mad. I saw mydouble... and then I saw

it was a replica. A hand-made,custom-built replica,a won-
der of the plasticsurgeon'sart. The troubleshe'd gone to!
She'd had her nose bobbed, her titspruned,her bum ele-
vated, she'd starved and grieved away her middle-age
spread. She'd had her back molarsout, givingthe illusion
of cheekbones. Her face was liftedup so farher ears had
ended up on top ofher head but,happily,thewighid them.
And afterall thatshe looked verylifelike,I mustsay,ifnot,
when I looked more closely,not all that much like me,
more like a blurred photocopy or an artist'simpression,
and, poor cow,you could stillsee the bruisesunder the Max
Factor Pan Stik, however thicklyshe applied it, and the
scarsround where the ears should be. Oooh, it musthave
hurt!....Before me stood the exed Mrs. Khan, who loved
her man so much she was prepared to turnherselfinto a
rough copy of his beloved for his sake... her hands were
wrinkledand freckledon the backs, theycan't do a thing
withhands, cosmetically, but therewas no timeto findher
some gloves, let's hope he doesn't look until too
late....GenghisKhan and the imitationDora lived happily
ever after,once he'd got over the shock,and ifyou believe
that,you'll believe anything(Carter,1991, pp. 155-6,161).

The detailsof aging are poignantin thisdescription;the pain

thatthe rejectedwifeendures forher man is not unlike the pain
that Hans ChristianAndersen's mermaid experienceswhen she
slices apart her tail to make legs forher lover'spleasure (Ander-
sen, 1974). The masquerade,describedwithcruel realism,is not
particularlyconvincing,but it doesn't have to be; the younger
110 SOCIAL RESEARCH

woman's sympathy for the older woman turnsthe tables ofjeal-

ousy and she conspiresto help out her out-classedrival. It didn't
workfor the mermaid,and we are led to believe thatit will not
workforthiswoman either. It neverreallyworks.
A milderversion of the face-lift, heavymake-up,is described
when,years afterthe Genghis Khan the agingDora and her
affair,
twinsisterNora attenda partyand want to look young: "It took
an age but we did it; we painted the faces thatwe alwaysused to
have on to the faceswe have now. From a distanceof thirty feet
with the light behind us, we looked, at firstglance..." (Carter,
1991, p. 192). (This technique was immortalized,according to
legend, by the aging Doris Day,who persistedin playingthe part
of young girls- "I knew her before she was a virgin,"Groucho
Marx once claimed- and insisted on being photographed
throughgauze smearedwithvaseline.) Painted in thisway,Nora
and Dora meet a man theyhave knownsince childhood, and he
greetsthemwiththe usual cliché:

"Floradora! You haven'tchanged one bit!" I was about to

say him nay,draw his attentionto the crow'sfeet,the grey
hairs and turkeywobblersbut I saw by the look in his eye
thathe meantwhathe said, thathe really,trulyloved us and
so he saw no difference;he saw the girlswe alwayswould be
under the scrawny, wizened carapace thattimehad forced
on us for,althoughpromiscuous,he was also faithful, and,
where he loved, he never altered, nor saw any alteration.
And then I wondered,was I builtthe same way,too? Did I
see the soul of the one I loved when I saw Perry,not his
body? (Carter,1991, p. 208)

Aye,thatis the question. How do we recognize one another,

and ourselves,despite the ravagesof time?
Kobo Abe's novel TheFace ofAnother investigatesthe psycholog-
ical pathologyof a face-liftmade necessaryby an industrialacci-
dent. At the
first, victimof the accidentwearsan obviousmaskto
hide his hideouslydisfiguredface; but then he has a plasticsur-
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 111

geon make him a more realisticface-maskthathe can put on and

take offat will,and in thisface he seduces his own wife. Furious
at his own success, he is even more deeply wounded when she
leaves him and explains,in a letter,thatshe had recognizedhim
behind the otherface all along. The husband explains,in a let-
"The maskwas no longer
terto his wife,his own self-justification:
a means by which to get you back, but only a hidden camera
throughwhich to watch your betrayalof me. I had made the
mask for the purpose of recoveringmyself. But it had willfully
escaped fromme..." (Abe, 1992, p. 209). And: "I prayedforthe
fairy-talemiracle of awakeningone morning to find the mask
stuck firmlyon my face, to discover it had become my real
face....But the miracle,of course,did not happen" (Abe, 1992, p.
210). And, finally:"I knewverywell thatexposing the truechar-
acter of the maskwould probablyhurtand humiliateyou" (Abe,
1992, p. 214).
In the filmmade fromthe novel,the plasticsurgeonsaysto his
nurse (withwhom he is havingan affair),"I hope he willuse the
mask to find himself,not to escape fromhimself." The latter
option is, however,what the face-liftachieves in this film,as it
does in the myths:it is a vain attemptto escape fromoneself. In
a subplot,a girlwitha hideouslyscarredface hides it by letting
her hair cover most of her face. Eventually,rejected by other
men,she seduces her brotherand, later,commitssuicide. So this,
too, is an intolerablesituation;to have a face-lift,
or not to have it,
is fatal (and leads to incest). The more brutalformof the face-
liftmyth,the Inuitversion,is imagined in the filmwhen the sur-
geon findsa man whose skin tone he wantsto copy and saysto
him,"Justgiveus the shape ofyourface;we don't wantthe details;
we wouldn'tskinyou for 10,000 yen." But thisis preciselywhat
the surgeon has done to the man who commissionedthe new
face: skinned him- removed his own skin and given him
another- and charged him 10,000yen.
1 12 SOCIAL RESEARCH

Face-Lifts: The Films

Face-liftsin Hollywoodfilmsare oftendesigned to cany offa

deception,but here, too, the issues of youth,beauty,and immor-
tality remain powerful; and here, too, the face-liftalmost
inevitablyresultsin disaster,oftenin incest. This patternbegins
in the filmsnoirs,withfilmslike TheScar (1948), in whicha man
giveshimselfa scar in order to matchthe scar on the face of the
man he murdersand then impersonates.Too late, he discovers
thathe has been impersonatingsomeone farworsethan himself,
indeed that,in a sense, he has been impersonatinghimself;and
so he, too, is murdered. In Dark Passage (1947), we do not see
HumphreyBogart'sface for the firsthalf-hourof the film,until
he has had the plastic surgery that transformshim into-
HumphreyBogart,masqueradingas himself;until then,we see
the worldthroughhis eyes. A face-lift witha sinistertwistoccurs
in Return the
from Ashes, a Britishfilm made in 1965 (directedbyj.
Lee-Thompson,fromthe novel byHubert Monteilhet):

Returnfromthe Ashes

A Jewishwoman doctor in Germanyin the 1930s marriesa

youngerman who is afterher money. She is deported to
Dachau duringthe Nazi regime,and, thinkingher dead, he
has an affairwithher daughterbya previousmarriage. But
she survivesand returns secretly,though so hideously
changed by her experience in the camps that she hides
fromher husband untilher old friend,a plasticsurgeon-
who recognizes her even in her deformed condition-
transforms her face back intowhatit had been. Beforeshe
can reveal herself,however,her husband catches sightof
her and thinksshe mustbe a womanwho looksjust like his
wife,whom he still believes to be dead. He asks her to
impersonatethe dead woman in order to help him claim
her fortune,and goes so far as to teach her to forge the
other woman's signature. When he suggests that she
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 113

should have a concentrationcamp numbertatooed on her

arm,to completethe disguise,she casuallyremarksthatshe
has already seen to that, and shows him the scar. This
makes him uneasy,and eventually, when she dyes her hair
blond again, he realizes thatshe reallyis his wife. Indeed,
as he alwaysused to say to her, "If a woman has beautiful
eyes,thereis alwayssomethingthe same about her,no mat-
terwhatelse happens."
When the motherclaimshim back fromthe daughter,
saying,sadly,"He's the firstman in your life; he's the last
man in mine," the daughter plots the murder of her
motherin orderto keep him to herself.He killsthe daugh-
terand attemptsto killthe mother,who is saved bythe plas-
ticsurgeon.
This womanintentionally undergoesa face-lift in order
to impersonateherself. This is simplyan exaggerated,lit-
eralized form of the rationale for contemporarysurgical
face-lifts,too: to make you look like who you "reallyare,"
i.e., who you were beforeyou aged. The surgeryremoves
one set of scars,but her identityis revealedbyanotherscar,
and she comes into murderous conflictwith her own
daughter- her youngerself,who looks like the woman she
was beforeshe aged. Here again, the shadowof incestfalls
across the face-lift.

Memory,amnesia,and plasticsurgeryformthe basic structure

of the 1991 filmShattered:

Shattered

A man who has been in a terribleautomobileaccidentwakes

up horribly withouta memoryor a face. His wife,
disfigured,
Judith,shows him (and the plasticsurgeons) photos of his
face,and tellshim who he is: her husband,Dan Merrick,a
wealthymanwho livesin San Francisco.The surgeonsrecon-
114 SOCIAL RESEARCH

structhisfaceaccordingto thephotos,and he beginsto have

memoriesof makinglove to Judithon a beach in Mexico.
But when he findsphotos of her embracinga man whose
fromhis,he becomesjealous and disturbed.
face is different
He learnsthathe had treatedJudithverybadly,thatshe had
been havingan affairwitha man namedJackStanton,and
thathe had wanteda divorce. He thinkshe has trackedStan-
ton down, but the person he is followingturnsout to be
Judithin a man's wigandjacket,who says,"Thereis no Stan-
ton; you shot him,"and insiststhatshe was playingthe part
of Stantonjust now to convincepeople thatStantonwas still
alive,to protecthim,Dan. Now he dreamsofwatchingsome-
one shoot a man who looks like himself,Dan, and when he
wakesup he searchesforStanton's bodyuntilhe findsa body
that has been preservedin formaldehyde;it has his face,
Dan's face. He realizesthat,behind his reconstructed face,
he isJackStanton.
Shocked,he fallsand hitshis head, and now again he
remembersmakinglove on the beach, but thistimehe sees
hisface,theface ofJackStanton,and he hearsher say,"Jack,
I loveyou." AsJack,he remembersclearlythatshe shotDan
and tried to persuade him to run offwith her. He had
protested,"I'm out ofyourlife,"and in her furiousresistance
therehad been a strugglein thecar and an accident,in which
she rolled freeand he was disfiguredand concussed. Now
again thereis a strugglein the car,but thistimehe is theone
who rollsfree;the car explodes,killingher.

"I don'tgetit,"Dan keepssaying."Whydid she do all this?"Why

indeed? Ifyoudon'thaveyourfaceor yourmemories,who are you?
Whatis there,besidesthemindand theface,thatshe loves? Is itjust
thebody? Or is it the idea thathe is her lover,not her husband?
Some of the implicitquestionsleftunansweredin thisfilmwere
explicitlyposed, and partlyanswered,in the novel on which the
filmwas based, ThePlasticNightmare, byRichardNeely (1969- des-
ignatedon thecoveras "a masterpieceoffifties highpulp"). Judith
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 115

in the novelexplainstoJack (afterhe has figuredout thathe is,in

fact,Jack) how she did it. Afterthe crash,she sawsome old photos
of Dan: "They'd been takenseven or eightyearsago, when Dan
wasa lot thinner.I thoughthowremarkably he resembledyou. He
was yourheight,was then about the same weight,had the same
color eyes and hair and similarfeatures. You could have been
brothers. I don't wonder I found him attractivein those days"
(Neely,1969,p. 236) . Itwouldtherefore be easyto changehisface,
but how did she knowhe would have lost his memory? (As Dan
says,"I had emergedfromcoma conveniently amnesiac...") And,
evenifwe knowhowshe did it,whydid she do it? In thenovel,she
admitsthe stupidity, and thefailure,of her plan: Passionwearsoff
fast,and theystartsleepingin separatebedrooms. Finallyshe tells
him, "It would neverhave workedanyway...You began to remind
me too much ofhim. I foundI was glad whenyou movedintothis
room. Everything was breakingdown all overagain,just as it had
withDan" (Neely,1969, p. 237). The bodyand the mind corrupt
the face. Shatteredis an embodimentof a cynicalcliché: thatsex-
ual love neverlasts,because loversturninto spouses.As Dan/Jack
unwittingly expressesit to Judith:'You know what I like about
amnesia? Aftersevenyearsofmarriage,I getto fallin lovewithyou
all overagain." But in thatfilmshe, not he, is the one who getsto
live out thisfantasy.Scientiststell us thatour bodies are entirely
regenerated,cell bycell, everysevenyears(the period thatAmeri-
can folkloreregardsas the limitfor male sexual fidelity, the so-
called seven-year-itch). The face-liftattempts to turnback, or at
leastto suspend,thistickingmeter.
Scars and a face-lift
are at the heartof a filmmade in 1996:

A Face to Die For

Emily,hideously scarred in her youth, falls for a man

named Alec,who uses her to get some money,letsher go to
prison for him, and runs offwithher prettysister. A sur-
geon reconstructsher face and falls in love withher; but
when she discoversthat he has given her the face of his
1 16 SOCIAL RESEARCH

dead wife,she runs awayfromhim and takesa new name,

Adrian. Now a beauty,she meetsagain a man named Paul
who had loved her when she was scarredbut neverdared to
tell her. He does now,and tellsher fromthe verystartthat
she remindshim of a girlhe used to know:Adrian's man-
nerismof hidingher face withher hair evokesthe image of
Emily. Then she meets Alec again, makes a date to meet
him in a hotel room, puts on make-up to make her face
look as it did before,when she was scarred,and goes to
meet him. She shootshim and getsawaywithit because no
one saw Adrian come in, just a girl who was so horribly
scarred that, the clerk says,staringrightat Adrian, "I'll
neverforgetthatface."

When the plasticsurgeongiveshis patientthe face of his dead

he forcesher to
wife (as the wifedid for her lover in Shattered),
engage in an inadvertent masqueradethatshe onlydiscoverslater;
but she masqueradeson purpose (as herself)in order to murder
her unfaithfullover. Since EmilysleptwithAlec onlywhenshe was
she was scarred(both at the start,whenshe was genuinelyscarred,
and at the end, when she was pretendingto be scarred,mas-
queradingas herself),and withPaul onlywhenshe was restoredas
Adrian,neitherhas a basisforcomparison;butPaul,who lovedher,
recognizesher,and Alec,who didn't,doesn't.
A more mythologicalexample of this genre combines plastic
surgerywith organ transplants: Face/Off (1997), in which
Nicholas Cage and JohnTravoltaplaya terrorist and an FBI man
whose faces (ratherthan heads) are surgicallytransposed. This
procedure,which is in effectan exchange of masks,leaves souls
and/or brainsintact:

Face/Off

is in a coma; Sean
CastorTroy(Nicholas Cage), a terrorist,
Archer(JohnTravolta),whose son Castorhas killed,under-
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 117

goes plasticsurgeryto switchnot onlyfaces withhim, but

voice and body. Tve implanted a microchipin your lar-
ynx,"saysthe doctor,and so Sean can speak withCastor's
(that is, Cage's) voice. Then the faceless body of Castor
(who comes out of his coma) forcesthe doctor to givehim
Sean's spare face.

As Janet Maslin sums it up, in a reviewneatlyentitled"Good

and Evil Trade Places, Body and Soul," "Castoris free to wreak
havoc with Sean's suburban familyand at F.B.I, headquarters.
Bingo....Sean once looked likeMr.Travolta,but now he looks like
Mr. Cage. That means thathe sees the horriblesightof his own
son's killereverytime he looks in a mirror"(Maslin, 1997, Cl).
When Sean (withCastor'sface) sees himselfas Castor,he shatters
the mirror;at one point,the twomen standon twosides of a dou-
ble mirror,and shoot at one another throughit- each shooting
at the image he hates,his own reflectionbut reallythe reflection
of his enemy,whom he resemblesinside,throughyearsof obses-
sivehatred,as well as outside. This is preciselywhathappened to
Dr. Lerne, as well as to the victimin Shattered. The mythology is
patent: Castor has a brother named Pollux (the mortal and
immortaltwins,the Dioscuri,now evil twinsactuallynamed Troy,
afterthe sisterof the Dioscuri,Helen of Troy) and a son named
Adam,whileSean has a wifenamed Eve.
The teenage daughter of the FBI agent keeps changing her
face too- but she does itwithgreen paintand weirdearrings,the
usual teenage self-mutilation, and her fatherasks her,"Who are
you supposed to be now?" Hers is another sort of splitting,a
bifurcationofidentitybetweenchild and woman thatis the keyto
another familiarsub-themeof the face-lift, incest: she shoots
Sean, mistaking him for Castor,naturallyenough, but when Cas-
tor (whom she mistakesfor Sean, her father) makes sexual
advances to her,she stabshim. In the end, Sean and Eve adopt
Castor'sson, Adam, the surrogatefor the son Castor had killed.
Maslin remarksthat,in termsof films,this is "...a gimmickthat
118 SOCIAL RESEARCH

hasn'tbeen seen before"(Maslin, 1997,C14) but as a myth,it cer-

tainlyhas been seen before. In Shattered (1991) and Face/Off
(1997), A Face toDie For (1996), and Face ofAnother(1966), the
plastic surgeon at firstfunctionsas a kind of deus ex machina,
restoringyouth,givinglife;but in the end, he dispensesloss and
death,also divinegifts.

Conclusion: Lift Off

The mythologyof the face-liftexpresses,and challenges, the

beliefthatin orderto remainyourselfyou muststaythesame, and
in order to staythe same you mustchange yourface into the face
thatbelonged to who you were. But withthe face-lift you actually
change into someone else, from
different who you reallyare now:
a person witha soul and a face thatare formedand scarredby
experience. Charles Sibert describeswatchinga face-liftopera-
tion: "Witheach snip, I imagined the ghostsof the myriadwor-
riesthatfurledthiswoman'sforeheadflying free: there,the times
she troubled over school exams; there,the long waitsfor loved
ones who were late; and there,the yearsof confusionand doubt"
(Sibert, 1996, 24). And he records the hesitationsof a woman
who ultimatelydid not have the surgery:'"But then,' she said, a
nicelyfurrowedfrownindicatinga still-intact corrugatormuscle,
'I looked at mynose in the mirrorand thought,That's myfather
there,and that'smymotherrighttherein the upper eyes'" (Sib-
ert,1996, p. 45). Familyresemblancehere servesto anchor per-
sonal identityin the surfaceof the face thatchangeswithage, not
withsurgery.
A Clairol advertisementfor a dye to make greyhair black or
blond or red again proclaims: "GreyHair Lies." That is, time
lies, age lies, death lies. The outer surface of the old woman
lies, byconcealing the young soul beneath, and the dye restores
the truth of youth. Marjorie Garber questions the special
acceptabilityof face-lifts in contrastwithoperations thatchange
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 119

not one's age but one's sex: "Whydoes a 'nose job' or 'breast
job' or 'eye job' pass as mere self-improvement,... while a sex
change (could we imagine it called a 'penisjob?') representsthe
dislocation of everythingwe conventionally'know' or believe
about gender identitiesand gender roles, 'male' and 'female'
subjectivities?"(Garber,1992, p. 117) The face-lift offersa quick
fixto staveoffthe inevitableflood of a deeper change. Saul Bel-
low's Armeniancynicspoke of thatother change: "On any cer-
tain day, when you're happy, you know it can't last, but the
weather will change, the health will be sickness,the year will
end, and also lifewillend. In anotherplace anotherday there'll
be a different lover. The face you're kissingwillchange to some
other face, and so will your face be replaced....You make your
peace withchange" (Bellow, 1949, p. 540). "Your face will be
replaced" has so many meanings here: Your own present face
willbe replaced byyouraging face or bythe face of another per-
son withwhom your lover will replace you or, as a resultof the
firstand in order to preventthe second, witha face-lift.Most of
us cannot claim, withBellow's protagonist,thatwe have made
our peace withchange.
The mythology of the face-liftimaginespeople who attemptto
swimupstreamagainstthe currentof timebychangingtheirfaces
back in the otherdirection.Whatis the relationshipbetweenour
identityand our faces? The face-lift is an attemptto dodge the
responsibilitymentioned byW. H. Auden (a man whose skinwas
dramatically etchedbyhis life): "Afterfifty, you'reresponsiblefor
your face." In the film Dave (1993), the wifeof a man who is
being impersonatedby an imposterrealizes that the imposter
lacksthe "scars"ofall theiryearstogether;he has "somethingthat
amounts to moral cosmetic surgery." The scars that a face-lift
removesare the body's memory,in a formvisible to others,of
what the mind may have forgotten. Our scars may be the
strongestsignsofwho we reallyare: Perhaps,at the finalreckon-
ing,thewhole bodywilldisappear,and onlyour scar tissuewillbe
thereto testify forus.
120 SOCIAL RESEARCH

The problem of enduringidentityin a person as she ages and

loses her beauty- the problem that the face-liftattemptsto
address- is expressed by the Marschallin in Richard
Strauss/Hugovon Hoftnannsthal'sDer Rosenkavalier, who senses
that,as she is aging, she is about to lose her young lover to a
youngerwoman. She soliloquizes:

I well remembera girlwho came freshfromthe con-

vent to be forced into holy matrimony.[She looks in the
mirror] Where is she now? Yes, seek the snowsof yester-
year! It is easilysaid, but how can it reallybe, that I was
once the littleResi and thatI willone day become the old
woman,the old woman,the old Marschallin. "Look, there
she goes, the old princessResi!" How can it happen? How
does the dear Lord do it? While I alwaysremainthe same.
And ifHe has to do it like this,whydoes He let me watchit
happen with such clear senses? Why doesn't He hide it
fromme? It is all a mystery, so deep a mystery,and one is
here to endure it. And in the "how"therelies thewhole dif-
ference(Hofmannsthal,1911).

Later,she confessesthatshe sometimesgets up in the middle

of the nightand stopsall the clocks. How do we stop the face of
the clock- or,rather,the clock of our faces?
The characterof Sosia in Kleist'splay Amphitryon expressesto
his look-alike(Mercury)the impossibility of doing what Kiviok's
mother-in-law did: "I can't annihilate/Myself,transform myself,
slough offmy skin/ And hang my skin around your shoulders"
(Kleist,1982, 1.2). And thisbeing so, he eventuallyrealizes,he
mustbe who he thinkshe is, and Mercurycannot be Sosia, as he
claims. But the people who opt for face-lifts do not reason as
Sosia does, because, unlike him, theydo not knowwho theyare
when theyare confrontedwiththeirdoubles: the aging people
theysee in a mirrorthatseems to be a fun-house-mirror.
There is a gender asymmmetry here: Aside fromdeforming
accidents,women in these storiesgenerallywant a new face in
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 121

ordertokeepthematetheyhave,whilemenwantone in orderto
geta newmate. Storiesemphasizethemale gaze,therequire-
mentthatwomen,notmen,mustbe beautiful.Old womenare
ugly,in thesestories, in waysthatold menare not. Someoftheir
perceiveduglinessis natural,notcultural;biologically, men and
womendo age differently insomeways,thoughnotin others.The
softness ofwomen'stissuemakesformoredramaticchangesin
theirbodiesas theyage (theirbreasts,forinstance,softenmore
obviouslythan do the chestsof men). But these biological
changesare exacerbatedbyculturalfactorsthatdiffer dramati-
cally between men and women and that reinforce thebiological
paradigm that makes older women sexuallyless than
attractive
oldermen. Our societydoes notsetthesamepremiumon phys-
ical beautyin men as in women,or evenconstruct "beauty"for
oldermenas itdoesforolderwomen(compare,forinstance, the
appeal of the agingGaryCooper, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman,
and RobertRedfordwiththatof the agingBetteDavis,Lauren
Bacali,evenElizabethTaylor, letalone GloriaSwanson).Biologi-
cal decay (wrinkled skinand saggingflesh)is compoundedby
socialconstruction (a preference forone sortof fleshand skin
overanother)and a double standard(wrinkles thatare accept-
able on a man'sfacebutnoton a woman's).
The processof agingand changingpresentsus withnewver-
sionsof ourselves, both the same and different.Some people
totallyrejecttheselvesof thepast,theformerlives,theex-wives
or -husbands, theyouthful politicalcommitments, and become
each newperson,each newface. Some acknowledge the truth
and valueofall thefacesat thesametimeand striveto recognize
themselves in all ofthem.Butotherstotally rejectthepresentself
and striveto squeeze themselves back into the selvesof their
the
youth,through magic of the Nautilusmachine,theyounger
and youngerlovers,thehauntingofhighschoolreunions - and,
aboveall, theface-lift. Evenwhenwe succeed,themyths tellus,
ourshort-lived triumph is Pyrrhic,souredbythelossofa precious
part of our genuine selves- our faces. Thisfactis encapsulated
in theoriginaltitleofthefilmTheScar(1948): HollowTriumph.
122 SOCIAL RESEARCH

Incest dogs the face-liftbecause of the confusion of genera-

tions,motherslookingjust like theirdaughters,as theyso proudly
boast on returningfromtheirsurgeriesand spas. Even when this
doubling back does not resultin actual incest,it arrestsour abil-
ityto move forwardin timeinto a positionwherewe can become
our parentsand eventuallyaccept our own deaths. In the thirdof
the Harry Potter books (Rowling, 1999, p. 312), through an
episode of time travelthat traces a kind of Möbius twistin the
chronological sequence, Harry encounters himselfin the loop
wherethe past and presentcome togetherand overlap. The first
timehe livesthroughthisperiod, he sees, across a lake, someone
he vaguelyrecognizes:perhapshis father?No, his fatheris dead,
but that person sends a silverstag that saves him frompresent
danger. When he goes back in time,he runsto the same place to
see who it was, and there'sno one else there;he is the one who
sends the stag to save himselfin what will be the future. The
moment when Harry realizes that he mistook himselffor his
fatheris quite powerful;and it is, afterall, the only real kind of
timetravelthereis. We become, in adulthood,people who lived
some thirty yearsbeforeus, people who mustsave our own lives.
The face-lift attemptsto send us back to thatmomentin timeand
keep us there,so thatwe can no longer save our own livesin the
presentmoment.
The mythology exploitsthe tensionbetweentwo
of the face-lift
aspectsof our ambivalent attitudeto the soul, twoideas of the self,
twosets of beliefs,oftenheld in common: (1) yoursoul is deep
inside,invisible,and that'syou; and (2) yoursoul is yourface,the
public self,the wayothersperceiveyou, the barrierbetweenyou
and the restof theworld. The mythstellus thatthereis no wayof
being surewhichof these optionsis trueat anymoment,but that
each is, in itsway,true. The poet WilliamButlerYeatssaid it all:

If I make the lashes dark

And the eyesmore bright
And the lips more scarlet
 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 123

Or ask ifall be right

From mirrorto mirror,
No vanity'sdisplayed:
I'm lookingforthe face I had
Beforethe worldwas made (Yeats,1965)

Notes
^PadmaPurana (AnandashramaSanskritSeriesno. 131. Poona, 1893)
1.46.1-32,47-108, 119-121. This is just one episode in a longer text,
whichI have discussedin mybook TheBedtrick: TalesofSexand Masquer-
ade, The same text,withsome variations,appears in the SkandaPurana
1.2.27-29 (the versiontranslatedin OTlaherty, 1975, 251-261) and in
the MatsyaPurana 154-7(the versiontranslatedbyShulman,1997, 156).

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 THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE FACE-LIFT 125

Filmography
(w = writtenby,d = directed by,wd = writtenand directed by,s =
starring)
DarkPassage,1947,wd Delmer Daves fromthe novel byDavid Goodis; s
HumphreyBogart,Lauren Bacali, Agnes Moorehead.
Dave, 1993, w Gary Ross; d Ivan Reitman; s Kevin Kline, Sigourney
Weaver.
A Face toDie For,1996, w MarvinWelin, Mark Welin; d Jack Bender; s
YasmineBleeth,JamesWilder.
Face ofAnother, 1966, d Hiroshi Teshigahara and Kobo Abe fromthe
novel byKobo Abe: starringTatsuvuNakadai and Machiko Kvo.
Face/Off, 1997, w Mike Werb and Michael Colleary; d John Woo; s
Nicholas Cage and JohnTravolta.
Return FromtheAshes,1965,wJuliusJ. Epstein,fromthe novel byHubert
Monteilhet; d J. Lee-Thompson; s Ingrid Thulin, Maximillian
Schell, SamanthaEggar,HerbertLorn.
TheScar,1948, w Daniel Fuchs,froma novel by MurrayForbes; d Steve
Sekely;s Joan Bennett,Paul Henreid, Leslie Brooks,Mabel Page.
(Formerlycalled HollowTriumph.)
Shattered,1991, w WolfgangPetersen,fromRichard Neely's novel, The
PlasticNightmare,d WolfgangPetersen;s Tom Berenger,GretaScac-
chi, Bob Hoskins.