After receiving comments from haters saying she “looks old,” Justine Bateman blasted society for its pervasive body-shaming of women.
The 57-year-old writer, director, producer, and performer, whose brother is the actor Jason Bateman, is best known for playing the fashion-conscious Mallory Keaton in the Family Ties movie with Michael J. Fox.
In a recent interview with 60 Minutes Australia, she discussed the criticisms of her appearance that she had previously gotten.
She acknowledged in that interview that it wasn’t until she chose to Google herself one day that she realized how fixated the internet was on her appearance.
“I needed to google something to do a little research and remind myself of something that happened when I was famous, so I put in my name, googled my name, Justine Bateman, and then the autocomplete came up which was ‘looks old,'” Bateman recalled, via The New York Post.
And I was only 42 then, and I was like, “What?” the mother of two continued. And when I glanced at the pictures they had as proof, I could not understand what they were referring to.
When questioned later in the interview if some people might find the idea of aging “beautiful,” Bateman responded, “I just don’t give a s**t. I believe I appear cool. I feel that my visage best captures who I am. I enjoy it.
She added that she feels bad for women who use Botox and fillers to delay the signs of aging because she believes they are simply “not enjoying” life. With this consuming belief that they must fix their faces before anything else can happen, Bateman said, “I feel sad that they are diverted from the things they’re meant to do in life.”
“Ignore your facial features! What I’m saying is that. Get rid of the worry that having wrinkles on your face will prevent you from taking advantage of many chances.
In her book Face: One Square Foot of Skin from 2021, Bateman examined women’s desire for plastic surgery and talked about it. She reportedly asked Page Six at the time, “Why is the idea that women’s older face undesirable? What is the root of all that? How did we get here, and more importantly, how did we get to this stage in our current culture where cutting your face up, injecting it, inserting plastic, or whatever is spoken about so matter-of-factly?
She continued: “We went from, ‘Wow, someone getting a facelift is quite unusual!’ to, ‘It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.’ To me, it’s really, it’s like, psychopathic. It’s lunacy, and I don’t like that we’re going along without pausing to think about it.”
Well, there you have it, folks! Bateman clearly doesn’t care about what anyone thinks about her looks, and I’ll be the first to say that’s admirable!
“We went from saying, ‘Wow someone getting a face lift is quite unusual!,’ to saying, “It’s not a question of if, it’s a matter of when,'” she continued. It appears to be psychotic to me. I find it absurd, and I don’t like that we’re supporting it without giving it any thought.
There you have it, everyone! I’ll be the first to admit that I find Bateman’s apparent lack of concern for what people think of her appearance incredibly commendable.
