Learning Day: Diana Moran's Fit Face (Patreon)

Today, young headmoggers are able to looksmax using modern technology like bonesmashing and meth. But in 1996, the only thing available was raw stupidity.

Fit Face is a 60-minute VHS tape about a 10-minute facial workout by Diana Moran, whose name in German means "The Face Imbecile" or in Danish, "Denise Moron."

To get everyone's first question out of the way right now, I don't know. No one knows. Face exercising is one of those things that kind of makes sense, right? But it's also obviously bullshit, right? The face has muscles so maybe you can "work them out," but is that good? Don't they name wrinkles after the facial expressions that cause them? I looked up a peer-reviewed study done on face yoga and science concluded it has no idea. They think it did something but nobody agrees if it was anything. So yes, this is probably nonsense. We're about to watch people make dumb faces for, without almost full medical certainty, no reason.

Diana Moran greets us in a mall, introducing herself as "The Green Goddess." It's the name she used when she hosted an exercise segment on an '80s BBC show, and it was a very pleasant Google. Normally when I research the subject of a video I find "yo-yo performer commits quadruple homicide, remains at large" not "three decades of sexy catsuit photos."

Here in the intro we get a little bit of Diana's philosophy, like how, and I quote, "our facial image we present to the world is very important, and that image is how we want to be seen by others." I'm not saying she's wrong, but it's a bad sign to start a very questionable activity by saying the most meaningless thing. She might as well have said, "Webster's defines face as a barrier, usually made of wood or wire, meant to prevent escape or demarcate territory. Each one, on average, has half a woman's mouth. Now let's yabba-dabba face, kemosabes."

In order to make sure viewers know who the villains are, Diana introduces us to her makeup artist friend, Martyn Fletcher. He explains that the women in magazines aren't as pretty as you've been led to believe, reowrr, and then he and Diana start looking around and heckling shoppers. Like, openly laughing at the dumb idiots buying makeup wrong. Martyn storms over to a woman reading labels and tells her, "No, you unloved cow, that foundation is for human girls." I'm just kidding. What he actually says is, "Excuse me, madame, I know you obviously don't know me. I'm sure you recognize Diana Moran." She says, "hi," and they take her away. There's no other way to put it.

She's their prisoner now, pretending to laugh as they mock the sloppy pigs wearing the wrong eye shadow.

"Clock the one with the eyes," says Diana. And Martyn does. Her loathsomeness stuns him. He charges her, leaving his bags with the prisoner. He'll need both his hands to tell this hag how shitty she looks. "Cackle, cackle," says Diana Moran, The Green Goddess. It's awful. And you'll have to watch it every time you do the Fit Face workout.

Martyn creeps up on the woman and pretends to work at the store. She has no idea it's a trap. How could she? Does he not work h–? Too late. Diana Moran swoops through and carries her away in her clutches without even breaking stride. It's presented as cute, like it's super fun and normal to watch two people mock the faces of strangers and then kidnap them.

By the third hostage, the bit has been ground down to nothing resembling behavior. Martyn sees an elderly woman and complains, "The lips! The lips!" And that's all anyone says. They each grab an arm. Fuck you, lipstick monster, you're coming with us.

We cut to a little set covered in pictures of Diana Moran and the words "FIT FACE" where Diana is giving a lecture to Martyn and their three prisoners. They are Zoe (40+), Julie (50+), and Jennifer (60+), three nice ladies convicted of being too ugly for a 1996 British shopping mall by a guy who looks like Rob Liefeld tried to draw Ricky Gervais.

Diana Moran refuses to get to the point. She tells everyone they can "lose five years in five minutes." She goes on and on about contours and face improvements. "The eyes are the windows of our souls," she brings up for some reason. She hints at some kind of secret workout, but one where you don't have to put on a leotard? Is she embarrassed by this? It's like she knows how insane it's going to sound when she finally explains we're going to sit in a chair and make dumb faces, so she's doing everything she can to maintain the mystery. But she's standing in front of the words "FIT FACE" on a tape called FIT FACE. We've all figured out what this is. I feel like I'm at a yo-yo show and the performer is starting a third speech on the history of the yo-yo. We know what's happening here! Just get to the part where you tell us our drinks have been poisoned!

Anyway, after several thousand human lifetimes, it turns out Fit Face is some kind of face workout. Diana and Martyn tell us it's important to moisturize before a face workout, and they ask Julie (50+) to put some on. And holy fuck, does she.

Look at this. This is the Swan Lake of lotioning. Martyn praises her by saying, "That's almost an exercise itself." I guess he had to say something, but this was inadequate. Julie (50+) is conducting an orchestra with her pores. I'll be thinking about how this woman moisturizes her head for the rest of my life, and only part of that is sexual.

After a transcendent and enduring lotion masterpiece and a couple warmup shoulder rolls, we're ready to begin the Fit Face workout. The first move is called "Look Out," and you do it by gently looking to the side. It's not worth a number. This should have been the pre-warmup warmup. It is literally less exercise than you do in your sleep. It is 25% of a single no. Diana warns us to take it easy if we have neck problems, but I disagree. I think if you're not capable of looking to the side and you bought a tape about head aerobics, maybe crank that neck as hard as you can and end it? You grotesque piece of shit?

If the first move had too much movement for you, the second one is called "Stretch Out," and it's how a dog might watch you stop moving forever during a neck exercise. I'm starting to think this might not be a good workout, or the answer to aging. Diana seems to also know this, because she specifically does not promise to remove the signs of aging. She wants you to set your expectations low, which is easy when the first two exercises are how you watch a movie from a bad seat. Her very existence makes me skeptical because this is the regimen she claims to do. And while beautiful, when you hear Diana is 57-years-old, you think "yeah, she looks great," not "wow, that means face workouts exist."

The third exercise is called "Chicken Neck," and it's worth remembering the story they went out of their way to tell. These three women were snatched from a mall and brought here. For this. Like, imagine getting abducted and hearing, "It's okay, you're safe, we just want to help you look younger in only ten minutes a day!" You wouldn't believe them, of course. That's both what a killer would say and how people have sold you soap your entire life. But think how hard you wouldn't believe them if they sat you down and showed you "Chicken Neck." I hate to move Diana Moran into checkmate this early in the article, but do you know why this is called "Chicken Neck"? Because it's for the birds!

The next move is called "Swan (because it's for the birds)," and I'm glad I made this animated gif because I don't think you'd believe me if I told you it was looking up. It's looking up, and I'm fucking done describing it! Diana wants you to look right at God and watch Him not do anything about this!

This move gives us a lot of time to think, and it occurred to me why this is worse than no workout at all. The viewer was expecting some secret direction to stare to undo aging, but instead they get this meditative ritual forcing them to think about their failing face. We could be doing anything else, but here we are, focused entirely on time's cruel withering. I don't think you're supposed to worry about it this much. Getting old is only something you get reminded of when you sneeze and some muscle in your back rips free from your skeleton. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. My favorite hobbies are violence and alcohol abuse, so I've woken up feeling old since I was 24. The point I'm trying to make is that staring at the ceiling and hoping it makes your neck look younger is for credulous, insecure assholes.

The next move is "Goldfish" because it's how a goldfish would suffocate sarcastically.

Next up is "Ape Jowl." Diana points to her neck and explains, "I call it the Ape Jowl because it's going to work here." And why not? By now you've either long figured out this is bullshit, or you never will. Saying something coherent at this point would just be wasting time that could be spent looking up.

Another important element of "Ape Jowl" is making a monkey face. However, Zoe (40+) can't seem to get it. Maybe she wasn't listening and thought they were still doing "Swan," but she is just looking around, probably wondering why everyone looks like a dipshit.

Speaking of looking like a dipshit, the seventh move is "Lion" and it's really something. Diana's eyes and tongue shoot out like a Maori warrior cleaving your head open with a tooth club. She looks like someone kicked her out a window on Mars. It's insane she called this exercise "Lion" and not "Inflatable Doll Getting Pulled Inside Out."

Diana says the next one is great for kissable lips and it triggers a strange event.

The second he hears "kissable," Martyn turns to Julie (50+) and starts smooching at her. And here's the crazy part– she's not not into it! These two met an hour ago when he roasted her for her gross eyeshadow and threw her into a trunk. And almost all that time they've both been purposefully looking as stupid as possible. To find love here? Under these conditions? That's a miracle. Maybe Fit Face is magical.

For "French Connection," you wrap your lips around your teeth, unhinge your jaw, and make noises. Not French noises. I'm not sure where the name "French Connection" came from. Maybe this is Diana's tribute to what she did with the great Gene Hackman.

Next up is "Whistle Stop" where you hold a finger to your lips and prevent yourself from whistling. The instructions are complicated, way too complicated, but there's no reason to get them right so everyone is mouth goofing. No one has control in this room. This is five grown people fingering their own lips in completely different ways, and at least two of them are about to fuck. As a face workout, it's off the rails, but as a swingers party, it's going better than anyone could have hoped.

The sexy part is over. Let the image of "Clown" scrub the light from your life. For thirty seconds, the camera holds on Diana Moran's face while she battles a snake trying to escape her pelvic floor.

She finishes, a sick fiend drunk on forbidden orgasms, and walks over to Zoe (40+) who has lost all interest in whatever this nonsense is. Diana passive aggressively asks her if maybe the face exercises are too hard, which brings us to the next one:

For "Bitch", you sit in a comfortable position and form a blood clot in your brain.

"Bitch" transitions well into "Cheshire Cat" because it's the exact same thing. Something terrible might be happening here.

Number 13 is "Chewing the Cud". Diana's instructions are, "You're chewing a cud. Like a cow. Or even bite the inside of your cheek." So, okay, there's a woman forming clown shapes with her mouth who thinks looking left is fitness. You watched her have two strokes in a row, she named one of them Bitch, and now she's telling you to eat your own face. I was skeptical going into this, but I now have all my faith in Diana.

She says to take a rest here, but at the risk of sounding like a tough guy, sitting in a chair and not whistling is already resting for me. Oh, speaking of not whistling, the next one is "Whistle Stop" again.

If we're being very generous, "Choo Choo" is our second repeat, and it's not only me who noticed. Look at Zoe (40+)'s face. It is definitely occurring to her this can't be a real fitness video and she might be in danger.

We're done with our neck and cheeks, so let's move on to our eyes. And despite all we've seen you might still be shocked by the unlikeliness of "Bright Eyes". You hold your head still and look up and to the sides. As an exercise routine, it's confrontationally not. If some son of a bitch ever tells you glancing does something for eyeball muscles, you either attack them right then or live hereafter a coward. If you're not a hooded falcon, you have already been doing this "exercise" this whole time. This is just looking around, you snot-brained slug, how fucking dare you.

For number 16, "Uppers", you hold your forehead in place and blink. It's the least you can do and still qualify as awake. Diana looks like the first creature with eyelids dying from stupidity. This is how a real man forces himself to stare at an eclipse, and nothing else. This looks like someone puking after eating an entire meal with their eyes. If you said, "Do something dumb and pointless with your fingers," three out of ten people would do this. Yet despite all this, she says the words, "I know this sounds complicated, but it's not really." How fucking dare you, again.

For "Downers" you hold your cheeks in place and squint, and maybe I'm making fun of it now, but the joke will be on me when my hands are full and I need to rescue a drowning swimmer with my eyelids. This looks like the world's worst serial killer trying not to smile at a crime scene.

I don't like this at all. "Crow's Feet" looks like Professor X sending a racist impression to his X-Men, his powers forcing him to feel their discomfort at the same time.

"Crow's Feet" has unlocked something impossible inside Martyn. Every cat in a five mile radius bursts into flame, and only he will ever know why.

It may look like nothing, but make no mistake, "Life Lines" is an all-out war between your fingers and eyebrows. Smoosh against waggle for the fate of your face! Oh, sorry, this happens sometimes. I lose my mind when a thing is too untethered from reality to describe and I try anyway.

For the final move, "Cross Lines", Diana tells everyone to poke their forehead with their index fingers and fight against them with a frown. Nobody in the studio can do it. I'm not sure anyone could. Her verbal instructions are far past unclear. Diana sounds like a note left on a fingerless corpse, taunting police with macabre flesh puzzles. So listening is pointless, and since everyone has formed random hand shapes over their eyes, no one can see her. But I don't think it matters where you poke your face if you're trying to undo time with face pokes, so I don't know why I'm complaining. I should let these confused face perverts have their fun.

Diana tells us it's time for a baby oil break, and yeah, we've earned it.

Darting in and out of 1996's stiffest hold hairspray, Diana's hands massage her forehead back to the shape it had when it was 56. She looks like the world champion of charades trying to get me to guess "mind karate." It's not their fault I kept screaming "ventriloquist dummy pulling on its skin!" The clue was good!

You might think because I've written 2600 words about Fit Face, the tape is done. Not even close. After this disastrously led workout where four students botch every face exercise eight different ways, it plays 30 minutes of Martyn's makeup tips. And while that's not my area of expertise, Martyn asks Zoe (40+) why she uses foundation and she tells him her skin is a little blotchy. He responds by shaming her, telling her foundation is not to add color! It's for evening your skin out when it's blotchy! This could be a misogyny thing and not a dumbass thing, but I was immediately suspicious he's not good at makeup and makeup communication.

While on the subject of suspicion, I can't help but notice 50% of this face workout tape is dedicated to makeup tips. What's that about? That's like buying a workout tape where part one is "The Perfect Situp" and parts two through eight are "How to Draw Abs On Yourself." It's like a diet book that only tells you how to stand next to larger and larger things. Oh, fuck, I have to go. I just thought of two ways to make nearly $300 in 1996.

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