Leonardo DiCaprio walks down the red carpet at the 98th Academy Awards in Hollywood on March 15.Carlos Barria/Reuters
Not long after Leonardo DiCaprio walked the red carpet as a Best Actor nominee at the Oscars a few weeks ago, the internet was buzzing about why the ’90s heartthrob suddenly looked so good again. Some liked the 51 year old’s new moustache, but many agreed that the actor’s face appeared slimmer, making them wonder if he’d dabbled in cosmetic treatments.
“I didn’t see any telltale signs of any plastic surgery,” said Dr. Asif Pirani, a plastic surgeon at Toronto Plastic Surgery Center. “I just think he’s leaned up and looks healthier, and so his jawline is more defined.”
That there was so much speculation about surgery is indicative of a larger cultural shift. From 2018 to 2024, the number of surgical procedures performed on men increased by 95 per cent worldwide, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Less invasive treatments such as injections and laser therapy rose even more, with a 116 per cent increase over the same period. Regardless of whether DiCaprio is taking part, it’s clear that many men are – famous or not.
The rise is something Pirani has personally observed. When he first went into practice in 2012, men made up less than five per cent of his patient population. Now, it’s at least 10 per cent. Pirani sees younger men seeking Botox and injectables, but he also noted a surge in more mature men requesting facelifts, neck lifts and eyelid surgery. “You’d be surprised,” he said, referencing the middle-aged professionals he treats who are feeling under pressure because they’re competing with younger men at work.
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Heather Widdows, a professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick in the U.K. and author of Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal, attributes this shift to the pandemic. “Those powerful CEOs might have looked in the mirror for five minutes in the morning and then they probably didn’t look at themselves very much again,” she said. “Then suddenly when they were doing their businesses online, they looked at themselves all the time, which completely changed their sense of self.”
Of course, this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to men – they’re simply the latest demographic for which plastic surgery is becoming normalized. “We’re seeing them aspire to more unrealistic and impossible ideals, like the kind of thing that women have been doing for a very long time,” said Widdows, who cited social media as another contributing factor. “We’re now seeing men be ashamed of their appearance and feel like they’re failing.”
The same trend is playing out in Hollywood, where stars such as Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper have recently drawn attention for their changing looks. Gosling appears to have had filler injected into the central mid-face, according to Pirani, a common procedure for replacing volume, but when it’s injected in the face centrally in a man’s face rather than along the cheekbone, the result is “a rounder, more feminine face.” This bloated appearance is likely what tipped people off that Gosling was dabbling in cosmetic work.
With a greater number of famous men submitting to cosmetic procedures, it’s no longer unusual for them to face the same kind of scrutiny and criticism that high-profile women do. Whether it’s Cooper sparking suspicion he’s had upper eyelid surgery or the recent appearance of an unrecognizable Jim Carrey at the César Awards in France giving rise to a conspiracy that an impersonator showed up in his place, online chatter about men’s faces is increasingly commonplace – and frenzied.
The pressure to preserve a sense of youthfulness is also the result of all genders today looking younger than they ever have. At 62, Brad Pitt is not how many envision or expect a man of his age to look. Gradually, that ends up normalizing the idea that an older-looking face is not how we are supposed to look.
“You can see how the norms flip,” said Widdows, “and we end up thinking that aging faces are disgusting and unhygienic because of that gradual shift.”
What’s also changed is that this kind of beauty work is no longer seen as unmasculine. “I think we’re moving away from that,” Widdows added. “Work on the body now is conflated with health work and well-being work, and that now includes aesthetic procedures.” Even though, she noted, they’re not really about health at all.
