Why is Heidi Montag not smiling?
I have been watching the hype surrounding Heidi Montag’s transformation from one-of-a-thousand-Hollywood hotties to one-of-a-million Hollywood blow-up dolls, most of the time just shaking my head in amazement. As a rule I tend to find the shameless fame campaign of Heidi and her husband, Spencer Pratt, nauseating and pathologically calculated. But at least based on their drivel-filled book, it’s clear that they get how to play the game. They may even have something of a sense of humor about it, but if either of them possesses one, there’s not a lot of evidence to support it. More than once I’ve ranted that they’re everything that’s wrong with our obsession with celebrity (not that there’s much right with it), and wouldn’t we all be so much better off if they — really, Spencer — just went away.
But you might want to get out of the way of the oncoming lightning bolt and bundle up because hell’s freezing over. The apocalypse is upon us, because based on this People.com story, I agree with Pratt. He didn’t want her to have the surger(ies), he said.
“Anytime I hinted that it might be a little much or if I just asked if she was sure, I even felt like I was crossing lines,” he told PEOPLE. “I’m not in charge of what she does with any part of her body. I’m her husband – not her owner.”
He’s right. And because of that, he’s the one who’s got to look over at his 23-year-old wife and see a face practically unrecognizable from the one she was wearing when they married — not to mention when they met. (I am, too, but am relying on Olay products to keep me somewhat familiar to my husband.)
Montag’s mother is also reportedly horrified by the procedures her daughter underwent. This is a woman who, based on my limited viewing of “The Hills,” ended up supporting her daughter’s marriage though she appeared to loathe her new son-in-law. She seems willing to try to go with the flow and get along so her kid can be happy.
After seeing Montag’s comments about how beauty really comes from within (oy — an actress she’s not) and watching the “Good Morning America” interview where she said she spent all of her savings on producing her new album (fat lot of good that did her), it occurred to me what’s missing in this whole mess. She’s spent a lot of time saying that it’s her body and her life and she needs to feel comfortable as a woman — and that’s true. But never in any of these conversations — not in the “before” video where she explains why she wanted the surgery or in the “after” video where she shows it off — does she look happy. In fact, she barely cracks a smile.
Maybe she was nervous. Maybe the procedures have made it tough to manage a grin. Maybe she got some media training where she was told that if she didn’t seem serious about this, people would think she was nuts. But I have to think that a person who was genuinely psyched about getting work done to feel better about herself could at least conjure a giggle. I’m not all that concerned about the “message to young girls” that this sends. The smart ones can see through this. If she really is happy, then rock on. But it’s mortifying to watch someone make herself into an unhappy prisoner of the mold she thinks she has to fit to achieve the fame — for nothing — that she craves.
My True/Slant colleague Marjie Killeen has a great look at the physiological reasons behind the push to look a certain way.
And to throw in something that matters, whether of not you’re planning to watch the Hope for Haiti telethon tonight, please give.
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Her face makes my face hurt. And Spencer should have done more than just hinting and asking if she was sure. Anyone who would such a thing obviously has a serious problem, and out of anyone, the closest person in her life should be telling her the truth and gravity of the situation.
You’re absolutely right that you should be able to rely on the person closest to you in the world to keep you from making a horrendous mistakes. But I have to wonder, given the fact that this girl kept talking about tricking him into having kids after he explicitly said he didn’t want any right now, if it would have done any good. Even if every bit of everything they do is staged solely for maximum publicity purposes for both of them, though, I do think that there’s only so much you can do to stop a person from self-destructing, or at the least making bad choices.
In response to another comment. See in context »Call me a jerk but I keep reading these blogs on Heidi and all it makes me think is “I want that!” Right this very second I’m waiting for Dr Botox to be ready for me. Freeze it, fill it, lasar it, then ~oooooooooooooooh!!~ a designer lip!
No, she’s not happy. It’s blatantly obvious about that. When she smiles now she looks absolutely grotesque as compared to when she smiled before she looked very beautiful. What Michael Jackson did over several years she managed to do in one several hour surgery; and, if she was not lost before, she certainly is now and is becoming more so by the minute. The superficial happiness is only going to last a short while, and before long she will be doing something else just as drastic to get more attention and fame and attempt to find herself when really she’s just digging deeper into the quagmire of her insecurities.
..Er…sorry. I did not mean to go prosey on everyone but I have been in self loathing for quite some time and am just learning how to love me for who I am and what I look like. Luckily I have never once had the funds to do to myself what Heidi did, but I find it incredibly tragic that anyone has the funds to do what she did. At all.
Bonnie, that doesn’t come off as prosey or preachy at all. I think you put your finger right on it — there’s only so long that a superficial happiness like this can last, before a person literally starts attacking themselves and insisting they need more in the future. I tend to think that the truths you come to without the kind of drastic measures we’re talking about are more lasting and worthwhile.
In response to another comment. See in context »