In the age of beauty, women from all over the world search endlessly for the fountain of youth. Aging is seen as letting yourself go as if you do not care for yourself well enough. Well, Justine Bateman, from the popular sitcom Family Ties, has decided to forgo all injections or cosmetic procedures because she loves how her face “represents” her true essence. Unlike most celebrities of her caliber, she wishes to age naturally.
Justine Bateman Wishes to Age Naturally
Justine Bateman is an American actress, writer, and producer who rose to fame in the 1980s for her role as Mallory Keaton on the popular sitcom Family Ties. The show followed the lives of the Keaton family, a liberal couple and their conservative son, played by Michael J. Fox. She continued to act in films and TV shows throughout the 1990s and 2000s. But her role in Family Ties remains one of her most well-known and beloved performances.
Justine, who is now 57 years old, decided on a slightly different approach to beauty. Instead of filling in the lines forming on her face with fillers or Botox, she has decided to let her body do what it was designed to do. That is, aging gracefully, and in the most natural way possible. Instead of feeling insecure, she adores her wrinkles and says they “represent” her true self perfectly. “I just don’t give a shit, I think I look rad. I think my face represents who I am, I like it,” she said to the interviewer for 60 Minutes Australia.
Celebrities and average folk wish to erase any evidence they are getting older. But, Justine Bateman likes to wear her wrinkles proudly. She admires them every time she looks in the mirror. “I feel like I would erase, not only all my authority that I have now, but also, I like feeling that I am a different person now than I was when I was 20,” she said. “I like looking in the mirror and seeing that evidence.”
She Was Not Without Insecurities
In the interview, Justine Bateman expressed how she feels sad for those who are so concerned about the effects of aging. She feels they are not concerned about what is truly important in life. “I feel sad for them, I feel sad that they are not just enjoying life,” she told the interviewer. “I feel sad that they are distracted from the things that they are meant to do in life… With this consuming idea that they’ve got to fix their face before anything else can happen.”
Her decision has not come easy, because it did not sit well with society. There is a lot of expectation placed on women, especially in the aging department. In other words, they are not meant to appear old. Not in the slightest. When Justine Bateman was in her 40th decade of life, she started receiving flack for allowing her face to age the way it was meant to. She googled her name, and the search engine provided some autocomplete answers. As she typed in “Justine Bateman,” things like “looks old,” popped up.
At first, this hurt her feelings, and she became seriously self-conscious about her aging face. In an interview with PEOPLE magazine, she said: “I thought my face looked fine.” Later she added: “Because of some of the fears I had, unrelated to my face, I decided to make them right and me wrong…I became really ashamed of my face, ridiculously so.”
Justine Bateman Embraced her Face
In reality, again is not something we can reverse. Nor can we freeze time on our faces. At some point, the effects of aging will become evident, and that will increase as we grow older. This was what Justine Bateman realized. “My face is only going to get older, so why not take care of whatever fear I have attached to that,” she said.
Justine Bateman came to the conclusion that aging is natural, and telling women to fix their faces is a toxic action. “I think getting all this plastic surgery is just people-pleasing,” she said. “You don’t want people to criticize you anymore so you appease them. The more you do that, the further away you get away from your true self,” adding, “I don’t think it’s natural to tell women they should get their faces fixed. That’s the bottom line.”
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Sources
- “Justine Bateman Defends Her Decision to Age Naturally: ‘My Face Represents Who I Am. I Like It’” People. Brandon Livesay. March 27, 2023.
- “Justine Bateman Explains Decision to Age Naturally: “I Just Don’t Give a Shit”. VanityFair. Emily Kirkpatrick. March 28, 2023.