Laying it on thick

One of the tough duties of an entertainment reporter is sitting and watching TV for hours on end.

I realize that opening sentence isn’t going to get me sympathy from anyone but it can be a pain to have no interest in what you are watching.

But as the new TV season started, the hosts of The Talk went makeup-free. I didn’t think anything of it and saw it as a publicity stunt to make a splash on the same day a bunch of new talk shows were premiering.

How vain could people be that they would be mortified at the thought of being seen au natural? The Talk hosts said they spend an hour and a half in hair and makeup – that’s 30 minutes longer than the actual show.

When the five women walked out at the beginning of the show I literally laughed out loud because of how different they looked. I was chuckling because they looked funny to me. But why did they look funny?

It made me realize that for so long these women had been hiding behind a mask — literally. It’s not a Halloween mask but I compare it to clown makeup.

Sure, they might be the same people I saw day after day on TV but it made me think less of them for feeling the need to hide behind so much makeup.

As the show went on I — and I think they did, too — started to realize the usual amount of makeup was extreme in the first place.

And I will admit I wear some makeup at a red carpet event for the sake of having colour and being photographed, but you still know it’s me and can’t notice the face paint since it looks natural.

When you come out on TV every day and expose that you’re essentially a drag queen with fake hair, eyelashes and skin tone, it is pretty shocking.

While the move might have been a sheer publicity stunt, perhaps it was eye opening for many women to realize that putting on an act with all the makeup isn’t necessary since it isn’t the real you.

Jamie Lee Curtis was on The Talk the same day and said it best: are you trying to enhance something or are you trying to hide something?