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.