The MAGA or Mar-A-Lago face is the new costly signal for anyone who wants to be part of MAGA (or right-wing news), and it’s pretty darned creepy.
It has a signature look.
Defined by copious use of Botox, a Miami-bronze tan, puffy lips and silky smooth skin, plastic surgeons told DailyMail.com it was giving Trumpland an almost ‘plastic’ and ‘Real Housewives’ look.
We can thank Donald Trump for this weird habit.
I wouldn’t normally be snarky about someone’s looks but let’s be clear: nobody is born with Mar-a-Lago face. These are not human faces, they are luxury meat-masks meant to signal wealth and in-group belonging. People such as Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, and Matt Gaetz can afford excellent surgeons and subtle cosmetic work but, unless they’ve all had botched procedures, it seems they deliberately chose to look like AI-generated caricatures. One can only surmise that they live in such weird little bubbles, where everyone is addicted to filler, that this sort of conspicuous consumption of cosmetic surgery has become desirable.
Having the right look is certainly desirable to optics-obsessed Donald Trump, whose chief concern for his underlings appears to be how they perform on TV. In 2017, an Axios report claimed that Trump wanted his female staff to “dress like women” and demanded that his male employees have a “certain look.” Over the years it seems the “certain look” has only become more extreme.
An obsession with traditional gender norms also seems to factor into today’s exaggerated aesthetics. Earlier this year a New York-based dermatologist told Politico that fashion often shifts to more traditional gender expression in culturally conservative times. “It’s ironic … that they’re so against trans-ness and gender-affirming care for trans people,” the dermatologist said of Trump’s inner orbit. “Because, you know, they’re all doing their own gender-affirming care.” The Zambian bum-stick chimps seem positively sophisticated in comparison.
You know, I’m not unhappy at all about this. Remember the end of Inglourious Basterds, in which Brad Pitt pulls out a big knife and carves a swastika into Christoph Walz’s face, before he follows orders and takes him to the US to reward him for betraying the Nazis? This is the same thing. If we ever overthrow our fascist regime, the people behind it will have all self-labeled themselves.
Duck lip is very much a Florida beauty trend though you can find plenty of celebrities who also have had so much Botox and lip fillers that their faces appear to be plastic masks.
The neck under that mask is quite haggard looking.
Maga Face calls to mind Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. That film is a terrifyingly prophetic vision of what the United States has become.
Plastic surgery? I’d have guessed lizard people! ;-P
I’m actually very much reminded of The Joker in the original Michael Keaton Batman.
He developed a poison to grotesquely disfigure everyone else’s face so they would look more like him.
#2: Would that make it more appropriate to call the botoxed mouth duct lips?
One doesn’t have to look like a monster to be a monster, but this crew wanted to hedge their bets….
MAGA person: can you give me a face that will own the libs?
Plastic surgeon: CAN I?!
Silky smooth skin? It looks more like polyurethane smooth to me.
It’s as if the equivalent of an alien 6 year old put a human model kit together… badly.
Or just made stuff with the leftover parts.
Coming soon: codpieces!
hellslittlestangel, https://www.artofmanliness.com/style/clothing/bringing-back-the-codpiece/
…and now we’re finding that Galt’s Gulch == Uncanny Valley.
Apropos, somehow.
John Morales — Shades of Clockwork Orange.
Cf. Lady Cassandra O’Brien
phillipbrown, yes indeed.
A most apposite allusion.
Worth a link: https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Cassandra_O%27Brien.%CE%9417
The wife of the man who runs that Art of Manliness site looks like she’s being held hostage at gunpoint.
https://content.artofmanliness.com/uploads/2021/11/BK2.jpg
Laura Loomer looks like Saw‘s Billy puppet, with slightly less prominent cheekbones.
You know, I always thought it was important to remember that, no matter how vile someone behaves, they still are human beings, not monsters.
But what do I make of people who do everything possible not only to behave like an inhuman creature, but to also look like one?
Now thinking about Musk’s dreams of living on Mars, these faces right out of a cheap SF b-movie – maybe the oligarchs aren’t really evil invaders from outer spaces, but it looks like they actually want to be.
Maybe we should do them the favour and treat them exactly like that?
How long until they start binding the skulls of their children, as per Aztec aristocracy?
The Zambian bum-stick chimps are a real thing. A bona fide animal ‘fashion’, they are imitating a high-status flock member.
As for the Mar-a-lago crowd, are we sure they are not reptilians?
Oops, we may all look rather skinny and starved soon! More fun coming your way:
Farron Cousins
“Trump’s Screw Up May Literally Bankrupt The United States Treasury”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=zOJs5FEq_Dc
If the court reverses the tariffs next year, the treasury may have to to pay out half a trillion $ to the companies.
And if the court does not reverse the tariffs, Trump is free to go on trashing the trade. Maybe you should all plant turnips in your allotment, just in case.
Wow, PZ, looking at that picture, I want to know who caught all those sea bass?