Monday, February 22, 2010

Blog #6- Cosmetic Procedures

Cosmetic surgery has drastically changed over the years, and in today’s age it is hard to believe that cosmetic procedures were once used mainly for those involved in an accident. According to Gimlin, “Until recently, patients were most often men disabled by war or industrial accidents.” I think cosmetic surgery became centered around women because women started to be more critical of their bodies. This pressure to look perfect has stemmed from the media and from images of Hollywood celebrities who are walking advertisements for cosmetic surgery.

I think cosmetic surgery is a way for women to fix the “imperfections” of their body instead of accepting their body for the way it is. Cosmetic surgery has allowed women to avoid finding the beauty in these imperfections. I feel that cosmetic surgery has become way too casual in our society. I think it makes our society look very vain, especially with the rising number of unnecessary procedures such as lip injections. When I say cosmetic surgery makes America look vain, I am referring to those procedures that people get solely for enhancing their looks, not procedures for those involved in an accident. The overwhelming number of cosmetic surgery procedures that have taken place in the United States says something about the level of insecurity Americans feel in regards to their body.

In Hollywood, the number of celebrities that have had cosmetic surgery done is far greater than those who have not. Cosmetic surgery is treated like a normality that every celebrity must have done in order to be successful.

Jennifer Grey, who played Baby in the movie Dirty Dancing, had plastic surgery done to her nose after playing that role. According to imdb.com, “In a recent interview for Channel 5 (UK) she said that having plastic surgery to her nose was the worst mistake she had ever made. This was because she was no longer recognizable as the girl from the film Dirty Dancing (1987), just somebody who looked a bit like her.” This is one of the rare occurrences in Hollywood where people treated her plastic surgery negatively, because she looked like a different person.

The second example is Hollywood’s negative reaction to Heidi Montag’s multiple cosmetic procedures. These procedures left her looking like a completely different person, and there has been a lot of negative feedback concerning her current look.

The third example is Kate Hudson’s recent breast augmentation surgery. Many people have had mostly positive feedback about her surgery because the breast implants were not that much bigger.

1 comment:

  1. I definitely agree that cosmetic surgery has become normalized for celebrities of today. It is almost as if you have to get plastic surgery in order to further your career or "move your career to the next level." One thing that stood out to me was in one of the readings called "Over The Knife: Why I'll never be Carnie Wilson." In this reading that we read in body outlaws, she speaks of an actress named Carnie women who symbolized beauty for all plus sized women in society. She said that Carnie was beautiful and an advocate of not being stick thin. At some point Carnie had plastic surgery (I believe breast augmentation and lipo) and then she was able to be in playboy twice and have many other front cover magazine appearances. It is sad that in order to be on the cover of a magazine you cannot represent the average normal American. To be on the cover of a magazine you need to make your body look unnatural and have it augmented.

    As a male, I can tell you that there is no way I would want to be with a woman that looked like Heidi Montag. She was gorgeous before all the plastic surgery and now she looks like a human Barbie. I'm pretty sure she said in one of her interviews that she can't run anymore because of the weight of her breasts. That is insane that a pretty young woman felt that she wasn't good enough and had to go to such an extreme for her to believe that she is beautiful.

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