Australian Story: 18x33

In Your Face

In a world obsessed with physical beauty, Robert Hoge is a man embracing ‘ugly’. Hoge was born 41 years ago with a massive tumour in the middle of his face. At first his own mother couldn’t bear to look at him and the family was advised to ‘put him in a home’. There were national newspaper headlines when a pioneering craniofacial surgeon used the cartilage from baby Robert’s toe to construct a nose. Hoge grew up to become a journalist and then built a stellar career as a public servant culminating in the job of media advisor to then Queensland Premier Anna Bligh. But he has rejected further surgery that might make him look more conventional. Now a husband and a father himself, he’s on a mission to confront us all with some difficult questions and start a new debate about concepts of beauty and ugliness and everything in between…