Enough already about Nicole Kidman’s nose in The Hours. Yes, everyone knows it was prosthetic. Everyone knows that Nicole’s own nose is much more pert ‘n’ sassy ‘n’ delicate than the porky proboscis that she sports as Virginia Woolf. Everyone knows Nicole is pretty damned good-lookin’. Even my mother, whose aesthetic usually doesn’t embrace pale skin, had to recently confess that she saw some photos where Ms. Kidman was absolutely exquisite. So yeah. Now that my mother’s been converted, I think it’s safe to say that yes, Nicole Kidman is a looker!
So can people please stop marveling about how bold and brave it was for her to dare to be filmed looking less than spectacular? “Brave” is Kathy Bates appearing nude in About Schmidt. It takes more courage for a woman who is not generally regarded as perfect to reveal her imperfections than for a woman who is to put on something false to make herself appear imperfect. We all know that Nic’s nose is lovely. We all know that at the end of the day, she can pull off the prosthetic and go back to being a stunner. So yes, she can, quite literally, pull off looking unattractive for the duration of a movie, because the Nicole we ordinarily are treated to is glorious.
The same thing goes for dearest Gwynnie in Shallow Hal. All the claptrap about how brave it was for her to put on the “fat suit” for the few scenes where her face was needed for the shot. What courage! What daring! What a woman!
How about a little applause for the woman who didn’t remove the fat suit at the end of the day? The actress (actor, whatever) whose real body was used for the rest of scenes, including the one where she ascends a ladder to the diving board? The one that had everyone saying, “Ewww!”
When she and Kathy Bates go home at the end of the day, they’re faced with the same bodies they brought with them to the set and showed us on the screen. Turn up the theater lights, and there they are. And most of us are thinking, if not outright saying, “Oh god, can you believe she did that?”
What I want to see is Nicole pack on sixty pounds and then show us her courageous, enlarged ass on a very large screen. Outrageous!
Much ado was made about nothing when Renée Zelwegger gained quite a bit of weight to play Bridget Jones. I read somewhere that she said she felt more feminine and womanly with the curves that the poundage afforded. And Celine Dion, who should never be allowed to open her mouth (even to sing), has said that she felt fantastic when she was pregnant because at long last she had a womanly figure. Yet both have reverted to their Original Thin.
Put your money where your mouth is, honeys. Or where your nose is. Or something. You are not courageous. You are not bold.
Enough already.
P.S. Nicole Kidman is going to play Samantha in an upcoming big-screen version of Bewitched. So we’re going to have to hear about her nose again. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam. Her nose, and all the media attention it gets, can blow me.