"We criticize women for aging. We criticize women for not aging. We criticize women's bodies. We criticize women for bad plastic surgery."
Every once in a great while something good can come of something mean-spirited.
When former film siren Kim Novak was mercilessly ridiculed for having what appeared to be a face full of (badly placed) fillers at the Academy Awards, novelist Laura Lippman tweeted a makeup free selfie as a token of "solidarity" and challenged others to follow suit.
"I looked at her photo and thought, 'Well, damned if you do, damned if you don't' ... all I could think was, God love you, Kim Novak. We criticize women for aging. We criticize women for not aging. We criticize women's bodies. We criticize women for bad plastic surgery," the 55-year-old Lippman, who described herself as "generally unhappy with all photographs of myself these days," told The Guardian.
Clearly Lippman's crusade touched a nerve or struck a chord (or both) because #nomakeupselfie has blown up on Twitter and launched a bunch of copycat efforts -- some of which have gone on to benefit good causes.
READ: Like Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad About My Neck
As
Ad Week reports, some started appending the #breastcancerawareness hashtag and donation links to Cancer Research U.K. to makeup free selfies and the money started rolling in. "It's brilliant it's raising so much money. It's totally unexpected because it wasn't something we planned," the organization told Britain's Telegraph newspaper.
READ: 12 Myths About Fillers and Botox
When we think of the power the Internet wields, it's often paired with negative things like proliferating hate, bullying or myopic thinking. It's nice then -- and more than a little encouraging -- that one woman's support for another can get a ball rolling and do so much good.
And, it's in
that spirit that I say, here ya go ...
#nomakeupselfie
Oh, and look, even GP, in honor of "World Water Day," has hopped on the bandwagon: