What’s happened to Renee?

Renee Zelwigger? Or is it a clever trick?

The Internet is all atwitter (sorry about that [not really]) about Renee Zelwigger’s appearance.

She looks different. WOW! It must be surgery! Or Botox! Or asparagus stem cell therapy conducted in a secret offshore laboratory! Could be alien abduction!

Renee says that it’s just because she’s getting older.

Well stand by internet fans, paparazzi, fanzines, magazines, and everybody else.

First, and I know this is going to shock you, Renee is an actress. Actors and actresses are paid to look certain ways. They may spend hours each day while professionals paint, puff, tint, and whatever in order to achiee a certain look. It could be the beautiful ingénue, or it could be the half (more-or-less) rotted zombie (Happy Halloween!). In case you don’t know this, neither Leonard Nimoy nor Zachary Quinto have naturally pointy ears; Zoe Saldana is not naturally blue skinned; and the various actors who play hobbits or dwarves are, in fact, of normal height. Incidentally, they aren’t beneath using special lighting, special lenses and filters—including smearing petroleum jelly all over them in order to get just the right look.

Second, every teenager is shocked, if not traumatized, when they look at their parents’ yearbooks and see that the nurturing lady who packs lunches and makes chocolate chip cookies was once a hot babe an attractive young lady. It may take years of therapy before these words are uttered; “Mom’s aren’t supposed to look like a girl you’d want to date!”

Third, the world is facing all kinds of real world threats. At least in the movies, the best and the brightest would be sitting around a huge table in the basement of the White House or the Pentagon in order to discuss how to save mankind. Unfortunately, in real life, when the going gets tough, the tough worry about Renee’s face.

So—what does this all mean? It means that ISIL is unaffected by the Renee issue. Ebola is not yet cured. The national debt is not yet resolved. Congress is still as useless as a live-in unemployed relative.

In the meantime, in a small office somewhere in California, an agent, with tears in his eyes, is greeting Renee Zelwigger with, “Baby! You had me at web headlines!”