KESSLER
It’s fairly common to hear human beings claim satisfaction with their natural outward appearance given the reasoning that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” or that “we’re all god’s creatures” and “we should be happy with what the lord gave us.” But such pious malarkey is of precious little comfort to those stricken with offensive countenances accented by repulsive features that make others turn their heads in disgust. Often such hideous creatures are drawn to renounce their faith in traditional monotheistic customs and turn to another ritual, one that can remedy the wanton cruelty of their maker in a few fell swoops of a bank account, an injection of silicone, or a swift pivot of a scalpel into anesthetized flesh. You might say this unmaking of the lord’s will is akin to atheism, but I say these formerly ugly ducklings worship at another altar, the one located at The Church of Our Lady of Cosmetic Surgery.

Whether you long to transform your aging 45-year old facade into that of a fresh-faced 43 year old, or your 18 year old A-cup breasts into something a film producer might better notice– cosmetic surgery is perfectly able to cure what ails all your appearance maladies.

Not happy with your nose, because you think it makes people think you’re Jewy even though you are Jewish, why not start over with something more Roman? Sick of people mocking your man-boobs? Why not visit ol’ Dr. God for some of those pectoral implants you’ve heard so much about?

While it’s true that nobody is perfect, that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve the outer appearance of perfection if you spend hard enough. Beauty may only be skin deep, but no one would ever want to talk to you if you were lacking that entire epidermal layer either- so, it couldn’t really hurt if you went about making things nice and shiny on the surface. Could it? What say you Miss Dublin?

DUBLIN
There are many arguments against having plastic surgery. The main one is: do you always want to look like you’ve just walked in to your own surprise party? There’s also a few follow-ups to that: Is it your life’s mission to scare people on the street with your uber-stretched facial expressions, a la Katharine Helmond in “Brazil”, will you be able to tolerate small kids saying, “Mommy, what’s wrong with that lady’s face?”, have you no desire to enjoy feelings and the ability to express them non-verbally?

We know who we have to thank for this obsession with keeping our faces looking 25 when the rest of us is 63, although I’m not sure “thank” is the correct word. Perhaps “blame” is more accurate. As long as Hollywood keeps casting Harrison Ford to play Chloe Moretz’s boyfriend, women will continue to seek the ability to freeze time (along with most of their facial muscles) so they can be perceived as forever young. Soon enough, the women portraying grandmothers will appear to be somewhere in their mid 30’s, and won’t that be fun for those of us already on the other side of 40.

Of course, there are valid reasons to have a little nip and/or tuck done. If, say, you’re a female of slight stature who somehow grew boobs large enough to feed a small Aboriginal village by age 16, you might take your mother up on the suggestion that you get a reduction before going off to college (not that I have any personal experience with this. Um, look, a shiny thing is near you!) If you were saddled with a nose that elicits negative joking from all who look upon you and you can fix it up to feel better about your appearance, I say go for it, Durante. If it’s a matter of improving your self-esteem and the rest of your life as a result, and not just because you (EEEEEK!) found a wrinkle beneath your hairline, then I can understand going under the knife. However, if you think you’re fooling people into believing you’re 35 when you’re 80, you have another thing coming. See: Joan Rivers and Jocelyn Wildenstein.

Or better yet, don’t.

KESSLER
Brava, Ms. Dublin. Way to play both sides of the coin on that one. But everyone knows you can’t have your cake and eat at two. Cake (much like revenge) is a dish best served between the hours of 8pm and 1:59amEST. Sure it’s okay to have, as you say, “a little nip and/or tuck done” to make you feel better, but when it makes Joan Rivers and Jocelyn Wildenstein feel better to undergo a constant barrage of scalpel assaults for the betterment of their own features because it makes them feel beautiful, then you draw the line? You may not like what Joan Rivers and Jocelyn WIldenstein have done to themselves, but if it makes them feel beautiful, then who are you to judge. It’s like Christina Aguilera says, “you are beautiful, no matter what they say or how many procedures you’ve had done. Words can’t bring you down.” Not even your words Miss Dublin.

We all have different ideals of beauty. To some, beauty is a sunset over the red rocks of Sedona, to others it’s a chin lift and collagen lip injection…and maybe some cheek implants next time. To the person that loves the cosmetic surgery patient (which I fully acknowledge might actually be no one) that collagen lip injection or breast augmentation is worth the cost of a helicopter ride over the scenic volcanoes of Hawaii.

Furthermore, Ms. Dublin, you freely substitute the phrase “plastic surgery” for the term “cosmetic surgery.” While it’s true that cosmetics fall under the umbrella of plastic surgery, the most common plastic surgeries are of the reconstructive, micro, or burn treatment variety. And that is most certainly not what we are discussing. So if you’re going to use the blanket term, I’d expect you to cover the blanket benefits before bashing “plastic surgery” and our celebrity treasures with such generality. Otherwise, I’d prefer you’d refer to the very topic of discussion and stick to it, which is “cosmetic surgery.”

DUBLIN
We all saw the monstrosity that is Heidi Montag Spencer-Bot or whatever the hell her name is now. And then she got lots of work done, ah ha ha ha.
But seriously, ladies and germaphobes, elective cosmetic surgery (have it your way, Pedantic!) has become too much of a commonplace occurrence these days. Someone (okay, I saw it on the teevee) told me that the Kardashian Mother got her neck done for her daughter’s fake wedding, which makes total sense, if you think about it. Fake family, fake weddings, fake faces, and now fake necks. The thing is, I know this now. I don’t want to know this now. I don’t want to know this, ever. But I digress.

There was a time when if you wanted a little slice-n-scrape-n-fill, you didn’t tell US Magazine about it. You “went on holiday” and came back “looking refreshed”. Kind of like those girls in high school who suddenly started gaining weight for no apparent reason, went to “visit their aunt in Canada” for 9 months, and then came back pretending nothing had happened. In polite society, any noticeable cosmetic changes to the body and/or face might go noticed, but out of tact and grace, it would go unmentioned.

Not today, brother. Now we get some random chick from the CW allowing “Access Hollywood” to film her rhinoplasty and liposuction. People gamely watch this while eating dinner. I’m sure the next contestants on “Fear Factor” will happily get breast implants with no anesthesia while swallowing maggots or something. Oh, and the chicks, too.

KESSLER
So what I’m hearing is you don’t like the publicity aspect of cosmetic surgery, which is very different from the actual act of normal people getting cosmetic surgery. Actually, by your very narrow examples of Heidi and Spencer (who were they?) and Mother Kardashian, it appears your bias lies not even with cosmetic surgery at all, rather with reality television. Now that I think about it, you’re the one who brought up Joan Rivers and Jocelyn Wildenstein too, I’m beginning to think someone is a little obsessed with the act of hating on celebrity and pseudo-celebrity and attempting to dress up the topic at hand as an opportunity to rail on such people.You just don’t want famous people telling you about their nips and tucks or proudly flaunting them. Well, Miss Dublin, I say brava once again for your ruse, which in and of itself is a tad like a cosmetic procedure. You’ve pretended to talk about an actual topic, but you merely scratched surface in order to make everyone consider a nice new topic of celebrities you don’t like. Well, you can’t lull me to sleep with such anesthesia. I’m wide awake and I see right through you. Quite the piece of work, if I do say so myself.

DUBLIN
A 100% NATURAL piece of work, that is.

Jessica Lange in 1994. Jessica Lange in 2005. Jessica Lange at the 2012 Golden Globes. Somewhere, King Kong is all, “Girl, please, what have you done to yourself?” See, Hollywood began sending the message that you cannot age gracefully AND naturally at the same time (clearly Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, and Meryl Streep got the memo, read it over, and said “Fuck that shit!”) and too many women went, “Duuuuhhh…okay!” When you start putting all that fake crap into your face, OF COURSE it’s going to look like you put all that fake crap into your face. And then when you stop putting the fake crap into your face, it then collapses into an epidermic mudslide of awful that results in neck flaps you could hide a Kardashian ass in without anyone being the wiser.

Stop the insanity, I say. Look to Betty White, 90 years old and not trying to deny it. If I look half as good as she does when I’m half her age (which would be two years from now for me), I’ll be happy as hell.

KESSLER
Well, I guess we are going to go there. You listed off a fine array of gifted actresses who are au natural (to your knowledge), but if you’re going to rail on one talented actress for having work done, you have to acknowledge the fact that for most actresses and celebrities who get lifts and injections, it’s because they’re not sublimely talented and need their looks for as long as they can keep them to stay relevant in a world that chews up and spits out their lady young when a gray hair emerges. So if you’re of the egotistical ilk that chose to make acting or walking in public your career, and the roles start diminishing due to waning sex appeal, you’re damn right you’re going to try everything to stay young- even if it makes you look like a female version of Frankenstein’s monster.

So you can site Helen Mirren, Susan Sarandon, and Meryl Streep as upstanding citizens of the non-cosmetically enhanced, but that’d be like praising Barack Obama for being our first black president– and not for his ability as a statesman. When your ability stands on its own, looks become irrelevant. Plus, it’s not like those women are totally immune to cosmetic enhancement. The best makeup artists in the business make them look like other people for roles all of the time, so what does it matter what they actually look like?

DUBLIN
Well, if that’s where we’re heading, then I’d like someone to live with me so they can professionally PhotoShop me every day before (if) I leave the house. If looks are always going to win out over talent, then I’m going to start spelling everything wrong, giggle a lot while falling down in public, and then get seventy pounds of filler injected under my jowls. Who cares if I’ll never be able to look like I’m smiling or expressing any other emotion? My face will be all smoove and lineless and boring and bland! Look out, January Jones, the era of Looking Good While Not Being Able to Do Any Verbalizing is officially here! I will kick your ass.

KESSLER
I’ll send my personal photo re-toucher over to your house right away.

DUBLIN
(looks at your photo next to mine up there)

Um, thanks Evan, but…I think I’ll keep it real for now.

KESSLER
Your loss.