I wrote a short piece for Slate on comedy, cruelty, plastic surgery, and the hilarious, semi-tragic Late Period of the late Joan Rivers.

“The central irony of Rivers’ face, as it’s evolved over the years, is that the more artificial and mask-like her appearance became, the fewer and fewer shits she seemed to give about what anybody thought of her. Writing about Rivers’ face work, Roger Ebert said, ‘I think it’s wrong for most people. But show business is cruel and eats its old, and you do what you have to do.’ To think of her surgeries as necessary, as tithes demanded and paid, is to get a vivid reminder of what Hollywood does even to women who are not sex symbols.”

“The Fall and Rise of Joan Rivers”