Fake presidency - fake portrait of first lady?

[Jaga]

Melanie Trump, although originally a beauty, went already through several face surgeries. Her face features do not look real anymore. Her first lady picture has more details of her hair rather than any details of the face. Sad.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/04/05/melania-trump-and-the-politics-of-airbrushing/?tid=pm_lifestyle_pop

The official portrait of first lady Melania Trump is jarring because her face appears to be heavily retouched, or perhaps just photographed through a lens smeared with Vaseline. It is devoid of fine lines and pores. It is not just the near-perfect face of a former model; it is a face that does not look real. The artificiality of her visage is even more acute when compared to the long, chestnut locks that frame it. You don’t have to squint to make out individual strands of hair. The hair is in sharp focus. Her face is not.

She is wearing a black Dolce & Gabbana jacket and a bedazzled kerchief. Her arms are folded across her torso. And it’s impossible to ignore that ring. But it’s the face that gives you pause because it is so unabashedly, unashamedly given over to a doll-like perfection in this image taken by celebrity and fashion photographer Régine Mahaux.

In the culture of high fashion, intellectualism and feminism, that’s not necessarily considered good. But in some quarters, it’s glorious.

img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2017/04/03/Production/Daily/Style/Images/AFP_N84D9.jpg&w=1484

[kaima]

With them being billionaires I don't know if anyone can say the ring is ostentatious. At least it gives us a look at how our oligarchy can live when they so choose.

As for her appearance, she is much praised in some circles for looking so good. I put that down to the degree we have gone down the road of artificial appearances - perhaps the ultimate artificial concept of beauty we have adapted in our civilization, circling most of the world. She has a typical painted face and artificially colored everything, nothing that hasn't been around for decades in the airbrushed beauties on the pages of Playboy magazine, where I realized the beauty on display there was like candied apples - a layer of sugar over the true beauty, and sweet enough that once a child becomes an adult, the appeal of real apples without the sugar coating becomes much more appealing.

I do not blame Melanie for the excess or success, as you may choose to call it, but our society where this display is the ultimate result of our 'sophisticated' sense of beauty. Look around you at the everyday effort at artificiality that most women seem to try to create. Look at the photos of Walmart women and the exaggerated efforts they put out in attempts to present their painted selves as 'beautifully' as they can - quite artificially, as it is.

It is at first difficult to step back from our societal standards and try to develop a more objective perspective, but I invite some of you to give it a try!

PS. I certainly don't reject the beauty that is placed before me, especially with women who present themselves as proud of their femininity. When I step away from Alaska I certainly enjoy the carriage and beauty of European women! If Melanie has undergone surgery, I wish her luck in her coming years. I have a cousin who lost her ability to smile by a false move on the part of a beauty surgeon. I also have a friend, a natural beauty who uses all of the conventional aids I outlined above except surgery, and still turns heads as she approaches 70. She recently did reluctantly decide to give up spike heels.

No, for me Melanie is a candied apple. I Googled the naked pictures of her, and she looked like an unclothed Olympic gymnast, like a stuffed breakfast sausage. I suspect (and hope) that was the air brushing!

[kaima]

This is not directed at Melanie personally, but at the world concept of painted beauty using women's faces as the canvas:

The novice novelist wrote: