Defending Renée Zellweger

Everyone is talking about Renée Zellweger’s new face.  Recently, the star of Bridget Jones’ Diary attended Elle magazine’s Women in Hollywood party and someone took a photo of her on the red carpet.

It almost broke the internet.

People went nuts over her “new look,” which is – admittedly – a pretty drastic change from the way she used to look.

Here’s the thing.

She’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.  At 45 years old, Hollywood will demand that she look 25…  even if she’s playing the role of a 45 year old.

Most people can get old and have wrinkles in the privacy of their own home.

Actors and actresses have a choice to make.  And, sorry to say, it affects women more than men.  Do you age out of the system…  and a career?  Or do you desperately try to cling to youth and relevance?

I don’t blame Renée for choosing to change her look.  But I hate the culture that demands that everyone look perfect, have the body of a teenager, and pretend that aging – and let’s face it, death – doesn’t happen.  John Piper wrote about how being anxious over the aging process as being the product of unbelief.  He wrote:

When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Even to your old age, I shall be the same, and even to your graying years I shall bear you! I have done it, and I shall carry you; and I shall bear you, and I shall deliver you” (Isaiah 46:4).

When I am anxious about dying, I battle unbelief with the promise that “not one of us lives for himself and not one of us dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:7–9).

While it’s hard not to notice when someone shows up with a new face, people who are making fun of Renée should chill.  I bet they struggle with the same insecurities as everyone else.

I’m the first to admit that not worrying about how you look is hard.  I’m not totally immune to the pressures of Hollywood, of course, but I am trying to keep my identity firmly in God, to trust in His promises, and to know that my future is in his hands.

This is true for Renée and for all of us.

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