Renee Zellweger’s face.

Those three words are getting nearly 3 million Google search results today. Apparently, everyone in the world has lost their freaking minds – and not in the good way.

Everyone except Renee Zellweger.

Did she do something to her face? Maybe. But maybe she just, you know, AGED.

Do you look the same as you did 20 years ago?

Or maybe the better question is: Should you?

Here’s the real problem with Renee Zellweger’s face: Our culture wants women to go directly from young/cute/hot/sexy to the matronly grandmother figure. There is no in-between that’s culturally acceptable right now.

Ladies, you know that gray area between ages 40 to 60, when you’re likely at your mental prime, and probably your career peak (unless you’re a celebrity)? Well, it’s probably a good time to quit your job and stay out of sight for a while. Why not take a really, really long cruise or something? Because—especially if you’re one of our beloved celebrities—there’s nothing we hate more than watching you wrinkle and sag.

Oh, except watching you try to stave aging off with plastic surgery and Botox. That’s so vain. Why can’t you just be better at, you know, aging gracefully? Sophia Loren did it. What’s wrong with your genes?

Plastic surgery works for someone like Joan Rivers because she made fun of her face and her sexuality all along the way (“My vagina is like Newark. Men know it’s there, but they don’t want to visit.”). She had chutzpah, and as she was never really a sex symbol in the first place, her looks didn’t matter as much. At least, not to her fans and critics. Obviously she took her face rather seriously. Most of us do.

But other celebrities aren’t as blatantly vain or direct about it as Joan Rivers was. They hope a nip or a tuck will appear understated and hardly noticeable, like they’ve been drinking green juices and taking yoga every day of their lives. (Which, some celebrities also do, to impressive results.)

But we can’t have it both ways.

We can’t dismiss women for aging naturally as no longer relevant or beautiful or sexy and then criticize them for taking measures to diminish the effects of aging. That’s an oxymoron. Emphasis on moron.

Renee Zellweger has been out of the spotlight for several years. Not that she needs to work, but certainly she enjoys having a life and being a person who gets to do fun celebrity-esque things outside of her house, even if she isn’t promoting a movie. Isn’t that her birthright? So, her face has changed. C’mon, America. When will we change ours?

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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Image: zennie62

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