Weird not wonderful

You know rock and roll is dead when a rock star nicknamed 'The Demon' gets filmed having a face-lift. And when he agrees to have all the wince-inducing procedures broadcast as part of one of those awful reality shows, you know it's definitely the end for this former hard man of rock.

That's what Kiss frontman Gene Simmons did for his show Gene Simmons: Family Jewels. The man once known for spectacular shows where he waggled his tongue and spat blood on stage, while smeared in grotesque Kabuki make-up, has now resorted to being filmed having cosmetic surgery. Instead of delighting audiences and legions of fans with fantastic shows and music, he's providing 'entertainment' by way of showing them what his puffed-up post-surgery face looks like.

It's not the sell-out that I find most disappointing. Simmons is more entrepreneur than singer these days. He has always been unashamedly business-minded, declaring that even in the group's heyday he was more taken up with thinking of ways to market and sell the band's merchandise than the music it was producing. Simmons was far more preoccupied with making sure that Kiss figurines flew off the shelves than with penning lyrics about the meaning of life.

It's not the grubbiness of the whole scenario that disturbs me. Neither is the fact that surgery is practically unavoidable onscreen. We've seen Dr Rey pumping up so many saggy breasts on Dr 90210, that we've become inured to the whole scrubs and scalpels and lip combo.

And if colonic irrigation has made it to the box, you can bet there's little out there that's going to be more off-putting. Watching bits of excrement swirl around a plastic tube while hearing a commentary about what it's made up of is hardly edifying TV viewing. There's little that can be worse than that.

Simmons' surgery, however, takes the biscuit for its utter pointlessness. Here is what, at most, can be described as a very plain-looking man well past his youthful prime. The obscenely-dyed raven-black hair can't conceal that very obvious fact. Nor can any amount of jigging around in dark T-shirts or hanging out with girls young enough to be his groupie's granddaughters.

Simmons is middle-aged, and stretching the skin on his face will not make him look like a young stud. Lifting doesn't make him resemble Enrique Iglesias. It just makes him look weird.

The same can be said of all those women going overboard on botox injections and other lunchtime cosmetic treatments, and popping in breast implants as nonchalantly as buying a loaf of bread.

While not all treatments should be dismissed outright, there are far too many women walking about with trout pouts, strangely swollen faces and popping-out breasts. Unfortunately, they are not being restored to the dewy freshness of youth but have taken on this uniformly plasticised look. The results don't have to be as horrific as the freakishly altered appearance of Jocelyn Wildenstein (who spent over $2 million on cosmetic surgery to make her look like a big cat) or Michael Jackson, to be unattractive.

Most of all, women who are obsessed with fillers and bee-sting pouts don't look like themselves. They look bloated not beautiful - all signs of individuality and expression lines lost in their quest to turn back the hands of time.

Some of them are beginning to realise that the collagen lips, cheek implants and assorted fillers have distorted their appearance, not improved it. A recent addition of the Italian gossip magazine, Novella 2000, showed a line-up of pentite - women in the public eye who regret they have stretched, snipped and filled their faces and bodies beyond recognition.

Alba Parieti - the sex siren of dozens of Italian comedies - would do away with the outsized silicon lips she had invested in when she was much younger. She acknowledges that the full lips which may have looked good on a 20-year old, seem out of place on a woman her age. Anna Falchi is another showgirl who regrets having breasts implants, a feeling echoed by Simona Ventura who would like to return to her original self.

These women have come to terms with the fact that ageing is inevitable and no amount of fat funnelled from one's behind to one's face is going to recapture the freshness of youth. Instead of frittering their money on fillers and baseball-sized boobs, women would be better advised to cultivate the more interesting and enduring side of their personality instead of a botox addiction.

Besides being a whole lot cheaper, it would prevent them from looking like identical middle-aged versions of Bratz dolls.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt