Sexism stirs debate over Sarah Jessica Parker’s mole

July 25th, 2008, 6:46 am · Post a Comment · posted by Colin Stewart

Was sexism behind criticism of actress Sarah Jessica Parker for her reported decision to remove a mole, as commentator Sarah Sands suggests in The Independent in London?

Perhaps so, although coverage of the reported mole removal was less harsh than previous commentary, including Rex Reed’s cruel criticism of the mole in his review of “Sex and the City” and the Web site Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse.com.

A representative for Parker denies that she had any such surgery, but there’s no reason for her to apologize for having a conceivably cancer-causing growth removed.

Sands says, “The removal of the mole is portrayed as both frivolous and a betrayal of other women. SJP had promised to grow old gracefully, and here she is yielding to the surgeon’s scalpel.”

“Cosmetic surgery,” she writes, “is regarded as a branch of voodoo by the popular papers. Any woman in the public eye attempting Botox will find herself pictured next to the Bride of Wildenstein.”

In an ongoing survey of “In Your Face” readers, 66 percent of men said Parker was unattractive, while 75 of women said she’s attractive. That fits with Sands’ comments:

Moles take on a mystical fascination when associated with SJP. This is because she is so liked by women for her fashion sense and friendliness and so disliked by a section of men for having a long face.

It’s interesting some men feel the same repulsion for the novels of Virginia Woolf, who also had long features. The problem with the late Woolf and, in her different way, SJP, is that neither woman dressed to please men and this can be regarded as an affront. If they had stuck to wet T-shirts, the history of literature and light television entertainment might have been different.

IN OTHER MOLE NEWS

The Make Me Heal cosmetic medicine site reviews the tales of two celebrities who had moles removed …