“I Miss The Days When Celebrities Actually Looked Different”
Awards season is basically over and my feed has been awash with extravagant gowns, enormous diamonds and ‘getting ready’ photos for weeks. The glamour is there. The budgets are big. But something feels off this year. A noticeable number of red carpet arrivals look strikingly similar.
One of my favourite pre‑Oscars rituals is still the throwback scroll. Old edits from the 70s, 90s, early 2000s. Chaotic dresses. Questionable hair. But the people? They looked different. Today’s carpets are glossier, sure. Too many of them feel oddly uniform.
One of my favourite pre‑Oscars rituals is still the throwback scroll. Old edits from the 70s, 90s, early 2000s. Chaotic dresses. Questionable hair.
Natasha, Digital Editor
The big caveat
Those older carpets were, frankly, very white, very thin and very narrow in their idea of who got to be “leading”. Dialogue has increased about how exclusionary Hollywood has been, and still can be. Diversity on the red carpet has improved, and that matters more to me than any rose-tinted nostalgia for the old guard. But even with a broader mix of people on the guest list, the range of how some look feels narrower than it should be.
Actors are also constantly asked to portray ‘real’ people. Messy friends. Stressed teachers. Nurses on night shifts. People who’ve had actual lives. To believe that, we need to picture them outside the marble bathroom and award show antics. When a chunk of the line-up gets styled and shaped towards one very narrow idea of beauty, that mental leap gets harder.
Even with a broader mix of people on the guest list, the range of how some look feels narrower than it should be.
What’s changed
The lifted cheek. The smoothed forehead. The carved‑out jawline. Call it tweakments, surgery, ‘maintenance’, whatever. I’m not interested in listing what anyone has or hasn’t done; what hits you is how many faces now feel like they’ve been run through the same filter.
We’ve seen a version of this before. Remember when everyone was talking about ‘iPhone face’ in period dramas – super‑modern, plumped faces with straight white teeth and veneers, in corsets and carriages? It pulled you out of it for a second. I’m getting that same tiny jolt watching some carpets now.
To be clear, what someone does with their face or body is their business. Hollywood is brutal – ageing ‘normally’ on screen is still treated like a bold move, and if your career hinges on looking young, thin or flawless, of course you’re going to think hard about every tool available. Sometimes doing nothing feels like the bigger risk. Plenty of them look incredible – but what I miss is the individuality.
Sometimes doing nothing feels like the bigger risk. Plenty of them look incredible – but what I miss is the individuality.
Where that leaves the rest of us
Over the last few years, online chatter has ramped up. Side‑by‑side photos. “Has X changed their face?” threads. A lot of it is nasty and sexist and ignores the pressure these people are under. Still, it tells you something about how closely we’re all watching. Granted, most of us don’t have access to this level of ‘maintenance’, but we’re still seeing the end result presented as normal.
Each year, I feel a bit more detached from the coverage. I don’t need another breakdown of someone’s brutal pre‑show fitness routine or a 15‑step prep involving lasers and lymphatic drainage. Instead, tell me the one product they genuinely love that isn’t conveniently tied to their latest brand deal. Or about the dress they wrangled from a designer at the last minute. That kind of detail is what keeps the whole thing feeling human.
Each year, I feel a bit more detached from the coverage. I don’t need another breakdown of someone’s brutal pre‑show fitness routine or a 15‑step prep involving lasers and lymphatic drainage.
What’s next?
I’m not calling for a ban on peels and peptide serums. I just want a bit more difference back. An ‘imperfect’ smile. A laugh line. A nose that isn’t perfectly straight. Maybe the real edge now is actually looking different – a face we can still imagine in all those deeply relatable, messy, brilliant stories Hollywood captures.
