kate middletonKate Middleton's rotten teeth made the cover of The New Republic, a political and foreign affairs magazine based in Washington. The only thing is, though, the Duchess' teeth aren't decayed in the least. In fact, they're perfectly imperfect -- the Daily Mail reports that Kate had her teeth aligned just slightly off-center to make her smile look naturally beautiful.

The decidedly non-fashion focused TNR photo-shopped a set of brown and yellow chompers on Kate to illustrate a point about the decline of Britain, not to start a dialogue about British versus American dental health, but go there we shall anyway. It's like way funner to talk about veneers 'n stuff than like geopolitical development 'n stuff.

It's been a cultural stereotype for decades ... the English don't take care of their teeth like we do here in the colony. As a kid growing up in the '90s, I learned everything I needed to about bad British dentition from Austin Powers. His rows of mangled fangs were what first turned me onto the running joke. Hence TNR's cover. It was a metaphor, obviously, but it also was a jab at the old motherland.

But maybe we here Stateside have more to be made fun of in the teeth category than those across the pond. Have you seen some of the false chompers that celebs get these days? They're whiter than white and straighter than Rick Perry in Provincetown. In some cases, they're even larger than life.

Hilary Duff's veneers were a disaster, same with Ben Affleck's. Then there are the totally synthetic and storebought smiles of most everyone who's ever been on the big or small screen. Reality stars may be the biggest fans of the perfect set of teeth -- I believe there is not one real tooth among the entire cast of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Our obsession with perfect pearly whites makes us just as worthy of being poked fun at as our British counterparts. Lindsay Lohan shows up on the red carpet with a faintly yellow smile and the whole nation freaked out.

There's no right answer, to each their own set of teeth, but before we make a joke about those scallywags with their rotten smiles, we should look in the mirror and realize that some of us have spent thousands of dollars to look like Mr. Ed.

What's your idea of a perfect set of teeth?

 

Photo via TNR.com