Kristi Noem's Jarring Transformation Has Become The Mold For 'Mar-A-Lago Face'

We've addressed Kristi Noem's staggering transformation in the past, and how the once shaggy-haired MAGA personality has oftentimes seemed to be cosplaying Barbie (yes, we're still talking about her SWAT team glam). Interestingly enough, though, not everyone seems shocked by the changes so much as inspired. Case in point, within the Mar-a-Lago crowd, it seems as though she's become the go-to template to emulate. 

Noem has clearly always had a thing for hair and makeup trends (roll footage of her pageant days when, ofc, she had a blond perm), so it probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise that she's gone all-in on the MAGA world glam du jour. These days, Noem could easily pass as an advertisement for Mar-a-Lago membership. She's become known for her plumped lips (and not the more natural-looking ones she sported in the early 2010s), extensions she'd be unrecognizable without, and never being photographed sans fake lashes. Speaking to The Meteor, Mother Jones' senior news editor Inae Oh explained, "Basically, she's a woman with a look that's very rooted in conservative, traditional ideas of what a woman should look like: long, flowing hair, heavy makeup, form-fitting dresses."

Yup: It's the same description that could be applied to the likes of Karoline Leavitt, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Guilfoyle's former prospective sister-in-law and self-professed MAGA Barbie Lara Trump (whose own transformation has been major). Yas for trendsetting. Of course, Noem and many of the other women in the MAGA movement aren't the only people who've had a little (or a lot of) work done. Au contraire, countless stars have long been the subject of plastic surgery chatter, and ultimately, what one does with one's own face is up to them. But Oh argued that the trend now dubbed "Mar-a-Lago face" merits deeper discussions of the current administration's stance on gender norms (read: rigid). 

Many agree that Kristi Noem and so many of the other MAGA women going for very much the same "lewk" is about more than just upholding traditional (albeit exaggerated) gender norms. Speaking to The Meteor, Inae Oh mused that Noem's hyper-feminine appearance made for a great way to give a soft face to a more aggressive administration. "That supposed contradiction is intentional," she told the outlet. Essentially, Oh explained, it provided the perfect opportunity, when she was challenged, for Noem to be cast as "a defenseless woman."

Others have argued that Mar-a-Lago face at times plays into the idea of eugenics. Speaking to El País, social anthropology Professor Santiago Martinez Magdalena explained that the fact that those within the MAGA movement are able to afford the amount of surgery they seem to dabble in allows them to "appear in the script as 'the best,' the legitimate ones, the chosen ones, etc.'" Magdalena continued, "Coupled with a distinguished lifestyle, I don't find it strange that Mar-a-Lago face is presented as royalty, with its histrionic court." In keeping with that idea, Dr. Natalia Ribé told El Pais that looking so much alike probably also gives the Mar-a-Lago squad a sense of belonging. "It is about identity and not only at an individual level, but also at a collective level: a label, like an aesthetic tattoo, that indicates what group you belong to," she said. 

Well, there's certainly no question that Noem, Lara Trump, and Kimberly Guilfoyle et al. are birds of a feather. Time will tell if someday that changes. We'd say that would be a shame given all the work they've already had done, but given how comfortable they seem to be with going under the knife, we guess that could be remedied, too.