Good Grief! Bad Grief!
The Key Concept: Expressing true grief requires the whole face to contort. Botox freezes the forehead and negates this expression.
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Figures 1 & 2. Here are two photos of two persons experiencing grief; they both exhibit tightly stretched lips and active cheeks. Notice the difference in each person's forehead and eyebrow action; Figure 1 (actress Brooke Shields) looks like she's stifling a smile; Figure 2 (police brutality protester, Ikea Coney) shows a genuine look of painful grief and sadness. What's going on?
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, a picture of a facial expression comes along that illustrates an important principle spectacularly well. Figure 1, courtesy of the actress Brooke Shields and the chemical injection, Botox, is just such an image. I found it disturbing and fascinating when I first saw it; I had heard of such things happening, but I had never seen an actual example.
There are two fundamental truths that Figure 1 demonstrates: 1) sad mouths unaccompanied by sad eyes are expressively meaningless; 2) the use of Botox can counteract even the most powerful expression, leaving an unintelligible face in its wake.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
On July 7, 2009, at a memorial service for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Brooke Shields spoke about her close friendship with the recently deceased megastar. As she spoke, her face displayed a bizarre and unnatural combination (impossible under ordinary circumstances) of extreme grief in the lower portion of her face (mouth, jaw & cheeks) and total placidity in the upper portion of her face (eyes & brow.) Although Shields spoke with great feeling about her sense of loss, looking at her photo (Figure 1) out of context, most persons wouldn't recognize Shields' grief nor Shields' artificially restrained upper face. I, of course, immediately recognized what was going on, and later read that Shields had received a Botox injection prior to the memorial.
THE BOTOX EFFECT
The protein "botulinum," in spite of being the most lethal toxin known to man, can gently paralyze human muscles when used in extremely small doses. Since the early 2000s, botulinum has been used cosmetically to reduce, or even eliminate, facial wrinkles when injected into certain key skin locations. The contracted muscle fibers which create creases, like frown lines, relax and smooth out under the influence the chemical, an effect that can last from 3-6 months. The use of "Botox," as the cosmetic version is called, has reached epic proportions, with upwards of 10 million men and women being treated each year.
There are two fundamental truths that Figure 1 demonstrates: 1) sad mouths unaccompanied by sad eyes are expressively meaningless; 2) the use of Botox can counteract even the most powerful expression, leaving an unintelligible face in its wake.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
On July 7, 2009, at a memorial service for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Brooke Shields spoke about her close friendship with the recently deceased megastar. As she spoke, her face displayed a bizarre and unnatural combination (impossible under ordinary circumstances) of extreme grief in the lower portion of her face (mouth, jaw & cheeks) and total placidity in the upper portion of her face (eyes & brow.) Although Shields spoke with great feeling about her sense of loss, looking at her photo (Figure 1) out of context, most persons wouldn't recognize Shields' grief nor Shields' artificially restrained upper face. I, of course, immediately recognized what was going on, and later read that Shields had received a Botox injection prior to the memorial.
THE BOTOX EFFECT
The protein "botulinum," in spite of being the most lethal toxin known to man, can gently paralyze human muscles when used in extremely small doses. Since the early 2000s, botulinum has been used cosmetically to reduce, or even eliminate, facial wrinkles when injected into certain key skin locations. The contracted muscle fibers which create creases, like frown lines, relax and smooth out under the influence the chemical, an effect that can last from 3-6 months. The use of "Botox," as the cosmetic version is called, has reached epic proportions, with upwards of 10 million men and women being treated each year.
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Figure 3 (left). Safe, clean, and non-invasive – what’s not to like? Here Botox is injected into the exact forehead location used on Ms. Shields, where it effectively paralyzes the frowning muscles between the brows. Figure 4 (right). The actual muscle groups that Botox targets in the forehead – the fan-shaped procerus (four dots in the center) and the angular corrugator (two dots on the sides).
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Figures 5 & 6. Just like that, ugly frown lines disappear! (The strange eye makeup in the “After” image is not the result of the injection). Terrific, if you’re not an actress constantly in the public eye.
 Before Botox |  After Botox |
WALKING BACK THE “TOX”
What would Brooke Shields have looked like if her grief was expressed naturally and the upper half of her face was not frozen by the paralyzing action of Botox? Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, I was able to create several possible versions of her upper face engaged in grief to successfully accompany her stretched, grieving mouth (Figures 9 & 10). They are both equally plausible.
In the original photograph (Figures 1 & 8), Shields' mouth is stretched tightly sideways as happens when we cry. Note the raised cords in her neck, which always contract when the mouth-stretching muscle, risorius, is activated, as here. Without the rest of her face equally engaged, the effect is unintelligible as an expression, like a sentence with a noun but no verb.
What would Brooke Shields have looked like if her grief was expressed naturally and the upper half of her face was not frozen by the paralyzing action of Botox? Thanks to the magic of Photoshop, I was able to create several possible versions of her upper face engaged in grief to successfully accompany her stretched, grieving mouth (Figures 9 & 10). They are both equally plausible.
In the original photograph (Figures 1 & 8), Shields' mouth is stretched tightly sideways as happens when we cry. Note the raised cords in her neck, which always contract when the mouth-stretching muscle, risorius, is activated, as here. Without the rest of her face equally engaged, the effect is unintelligible as an expression, like a sentence with a noun but no verb.
| Figure 9. Original: Botoxed. No Distress |  Figure 10. Modified: Moderate Distress |  Figure 11. Modified: Extreme Distress |
In my altered photo (Figure 10), it only takes a slight alteration of her eyes and brow to take her face from half-dead to actually sad. Note how the mouth now makes sense in context, and the entire expression makes sense on an empathetic, human level. We sympathize with her grief, which is the whole point of having expressions like sadness in the first place. In Figure 11, I have made her brows more twisted and narrowed her eyes to create a more extreme effect,. Both images make expressive sense with the Shields' grieving mouth and represent how Shields actually felt as she shared touching stories of her close friendship with the "King of Pop."
POSTSCRIPT:
How does Hollywood view this toxic "beauty aid?" Here are a two surprisingly candid quotes from well-known actors regarding the use of Botox:
How does Hollywood view this toxic "beauty aid?" Here are a two surprisingly candid quotes from well-known actors regarding the use of Botox:
 Figure 12. Olivia Wilde “….Botox makes everyone look like a wax candle, kind of like Madame Tussaud-esque weird…I don’t want to be judgmental, but at the moment, that’s a beauty trend I loathe.” |  Figure 13. Julia Roberts “I want my kids to know when I’m pissed, when I’m happy, and when I’m confounded. Your face tells a story and it shouldn’t be a story about your drive to the doctor’s office.” |
CREDITS : Figure 1, 8 & 9. YouTube video clip of Brooke Shields speaking at "Michael Jackson Memorial Service - Brooke Shields," published by PoliticsNewsPolitics on Jul 7, 2009; Figure 2. Photo of protester by Andrew Renneisen from NYTimes article, dated August 23, 2014, "On Staten Island, Thousands Protest Police Tactics," with caption: "Ikea Coney traveled to the march from Philadelphia, where, she said, her son had been assaulted by the police."; Figures 3, 5 & 6. Clips from YouTube video, "The Beauty & Simplicity of Botox for Forehead Wrinkles" published by John M. Hilinski, M.D.; Figure 4. Photo © i love images / female beauty / Alamy; Figure 7. Photo of Brooke Shields in Widows (2002), an American TV mini-series © 2002 Lions Gate Films; Figures 10 & 11. Author's photo-shopped version of Brooke Shield's image from YouTube video, "Michael Jackson Memorial Service - Brooke Shields," published by PoliticsNewsPolitics on Jul 7, 2009; Figures 12 & 13. Photos of Olivia Wilde & Julia Robertst © Getty Images; celebrity quotes featured on www.msn.com from Marie Claire, published on June 2, 2019: "You'll Be Surprised at What These 30 Celebs Have to Say About Botox."
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