Examining “iPhone Face” and the Art of Timeless Beauty
Period pieces have been a staple of the film world for decades and have put some of our favorite classics on the big screen, such as Pride & Prejudice (2005), Little Women (2019), and Sense and Sensibility. Recently, however, there seems to be a major problem emerging in the beloved genre – the plague of the “iPhone Face,” the phenomenon of the distinctly modern look that many actors’ faces have today, making them unconvincing in period piece films.
The best way I can describe this is by asking you to picture Kim Kardashian being cast in a film set in the 1700s. No matter how good her acting is or how convincingly they style her for the film, she would look incredibly out of place. She simply couldn’t convince anyone that she was from the 18th century. Of course, Kim Kardashian has had quite a few different fillers and procedures done that add to this effect, but other people seem to just be born with faces that look too modern to portray characters from the past.
This phenomenon started gaining more traction with the recent release of the show 1923, an origin story spin-off of the hit series Yellowstone. In the show, actress Michelle Randolph is said to look too modern to be portraying a character from the early 1900s. People are pointing to her blonde hair with dark eyebrows, her makeup, and suspected filler and botox. This combination of physical qualities has drawn a lot of criticism from viewers and takes them out of the immersive experience we typically expect from a period piece.
While the people criticized for having iPhone faces tend to be women, I would like to call forward an example I never see people talking about – Zac Efron in The Greatest Showman. The film is set in the late 19th century and he stood out to me for having a very modern look. Efron has been thought to have undergone plastic surgery in the past, and many have criticized his appearance for this reason. While people should not be criticized for simply having plastic surgery, it can create a historical inaccuracy that is hard to ignore from the audience perspective.
Almost every person said to have an iPhone face is a woman who has either had plastic surgery or simply was given more modern makeup than she should have for a non-modern film. While iPhone Face can have an effect on viewer experience and immersion, it should never be used as justification to tear people down for having work done. Furthermore, iPhone Face is more than just plastic surgery, and can be applied to some natural-born faces as well for their modern look. To better understand the idea of an iPhone face, we need to look at its antithesis– timeless beauty.
All of this begs the question: What constitutes timeless beauty? Everyone seems to have a different definition, so it can be very hard to define. Many point to famous faces such as Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, or Diahann Carroll as pillars of timeless beauty in Hollywood. From comparing images of these three icons, here is what I observed: upturned eyes, smaller, pointed noses, and symmetrical features. These seem to be the same features that make up the Western beauty standard and are typically common in Hollywood’s most famous actresses.
Timeless beauty suggests something that defies trends and the ever-changing societal beauty standards. The trend cycles have been getting faster and faster each year, with some trends only sticking around for a matter of weeks. This has made it impossible to keep up with, and pointless to try to follow every new fashion and beauty fad. Timelessness can be achieved by being your authentic self, and honing in on your own likes and interests to curate an everlasting look that is unique to you.
When looking through pictures of old actresses, I found that their makeup was more minimal and focused on drawing out the features they already had, rather than trying to define new ones. Hollywood has always been at the forefront of displaying the newest beauty and fashion trends, and the number of people with “timeless beauty” has been dwindling as a result. The concept of “iPhone Face” is not meant to diminish or belittle people about their looks, but rather allows us to pick out the features and beauty trends that are only applicable to the modern era.
“iPhone Face” shows just how often our beauty standards are changing from one era to the next, and made me realize how plastic surgery has altered my idea of what a natural face looks like. This is a growing issue for Hollywood actors and continues to create a moral grey area about staying historically accurate for period piece films.
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