Opinion: How ‘The White Lotus’ season 3 is flouting the ‘Instagram face’ with lead characters sporting natural teeth and receding hairline
Through its three seasons, HBO’s TV show The White Lotus has mastered the art of showing the dark, ugly truth behind sparkly social appearances. The latest season is no exception, as shown by the fraud committed by Timothy Ratliff (played by Jason Isaacs) or the toxic friendship between Laurie, Kate and Jacklyn (portrayed by Carrie Coon, Leslie Bib and Michelle Monaghan respectively).
In other words, if you’re trying to hide your true nature, The White Lotus will reveal it to all. Interestingly enough, director Mike White has extended this philosophy to beauty standards through the characters of season 3.
In a world where veneers and hair implants are ubiquitous, Aimee Lou Wood’s natural teeth and Walton Goggins’ receding hairline have caught our attention and driven conversations, with countless articles being written about how to style one’s receding hairline like Goggins or how empowering it is for Wood to land this role “despite” her natural teeth. “The whole conversation is just about my teeth, and it makes me a bit sad because I’m not getting to talk about my work,” Wood said following the surge of commentary on her appearance, as reported on CNN.
These conversations reveal a lot about society’s acceptance (or lack thereof) of pop culture figures who look “less than perfect”.
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This is perhaps because the last two decades have seen the rise and rise of the perfectly curated “Instagram face”. You’ve seen it on the Kardashians and the Jenners, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid and many others. It’s a young face, ethnically ambiguous but possibly white, with poreless skin, high cheekbones, cat eyes, long lashes, small nose, full lips, perfect teeth and voluminous hair.
However, this face might have come with a bit of cosmetic intervention. Of course, these procedures can be life-changing, empowering and can give one more of a sense of belonging. On the other hand though, cosmetic physical alterations have become so omnipresent in our society that the mere presence of Wood and Goggins—who are incredible actors and physically conforming in other ways—in The White Lotus feels so refreshing to many.
This is because they are a far cry from the unrealistic and harmful beauty standards that have been catered through social media for decades—something that has encouraged many young people, especially young women, to undergo plastic or cosmetic surgery to live up to these standards.
According to a 2024 study by The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the total number of surgical and non-surgical procedures increased by 3.4 per cent between 2022 and 2023 to reach 35 million worldwide. Face and head procedures showed a growth of 19.6 per cent, with more than 6.5 million procedures worldwide. This trend is a direct reflection of our social media consumption.
This curated “Instagram face” can be harmful on many levels.
Firstly, it creates a kind of baseless exoticism by “borrowing” elements from various ethnicities, such as the eye shape from East Asia, the lip structure from Africa and the cheekbones from the Middle East and native American cultures. Meanwhile, the same trend prevents women of colour from being proud of their ethnic features. Just look at Bella Hadid, who said in a media interview in 2022 that she regretted her rhinoplasty surgery: “I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors. I think I would have grown into it”.
It also creates a homogenisation of women’s faces, which doesn’t leave much room for any different facial feature—be it through age or genes—to be considered as beautiful. Activist and actress Jameela Jamil posted on Instagram in November 2024: “Have we considered how weird it’s going to be when soon all women on television look exactly the same but men have so much variety?”
This is not to say that the pressure of beauty standards is exclusive to women—far from it. From cultivating a muscular body to wearing veneers and hair implants, men feel the pressure—but to a lesser degree.
Luckily for us, Hollywood is finally changing the narrative slowly. Last year, The Substance touched on this topic in a very obvious way. And now, The White Lotus, with its audience of more than three million viewers, achieved this through its casting choices. While its approach is undeniably more nuanced, the series’ extensive reach amplifies the conversation around beauty representation.
Whether Mike White wanted it or not, his series’ latest season has contributed to the conversation—and hopefully to a change in mentality and more diversity of beauty in the future of Hollywood.
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