On Monday, 20 October 2014, Renée Zellweger, the actor largely known for playing the ‘wanton sex goddess’and famously flawed Bridget Jones, shocked the world with an entirely new appearance that many argued made her unrecognisable. Appearing at Elle magazine's annual Women in Hollywood awards, Zellweger's face evoked ‘audible gasps’ from the audience and paparazzi. The New York Daily News quoted an anonymous source, ‘When people got up close to her, they were taken back by what she had done to her face. Everyone was whispering about how different she looked.’ Seemingly, the rest of the press was in full agreement. ‘Renée Zellweger looks unrecognisable,’ noted the Huffington Post, UK. While still conventionally attractive with long blonde hair and luminously white wrinkle-free skin, press accounts agreed that she didn't look like ‘herself’. Indeed, later in the day Huff Post UK published a list of five stars who looked more like Renée Zellweger than Renée Zellweger: Juliette Lewis, Christina Applegate, Cameron Diaz, Sarah Jessica Parker and Rosie Huntington Whitely. Using journalist Amanda Hess's turn of phrase, Zellweger had become reduced to an imitation of herself. The consensus among all reports was that Zellweger had not only made use of but that she had over-indulged in age-defying technologies (specifically plastic surgery), turning herself into a sign board for excess and a cautionary tale about female vanity and celebrity culture. As I will note further in this essay, Zellweger resolutely denied that her appearance was the result of plastic surgery, arguing instead that she was simply happier, an emotional state that had written itself ‘naturally’ on her face. ‘Did she or didn't she?’ became the rallying cry around Renée Zellweger, a question intent on getting at the truth represented by her face.

The title of my essay is a turn on Pablo Picasso's famous musing about art: