"'And what surprised me even more was the fact that they were the graduates of those prestigious top-ranking junior-high schools. They weren't girls dreaming of becoming a TV star or a magazine model. They were serious, innocent-looking girls with their mothers.' The mother of a fifteen-year old girl told the weekly magazine Focus: 'Well, I did feel psychological resistance [in myself], but she really wanted it and I couldn't tell her no. After all, pretty women have a better time in this world, don't they? I asked my husband to stop smoking to cover the amount necessary for her operation.' The daughter, on the other hand, insists that such operations are nothing special for her generation. 'It's like piercing your ears. Everyone is doing it now. I cannot understand why some people make a big fuss out of it'" (Gilman, 1999: 105).
Seinfeld - Nose Job
Plea for donations - teenage plastic surgery
My Response:
The first video clip is from Seinfeld, and Kramer makes a comment about Audrey needing a nose job. While everyone else in the room took a serious offense to this comment, Kramer does not understand what the big deal is. He just thinks that it is a reality and there is no need to sugarcoat reality. I think that as we become more and more accustomed to plastic surgery as an option the more people will compare themselves to "normal". Kramer obviously thinks there is a very standard version of "pretty" or "normal", and thinks that the only way Audrey will be in those categories is if she gets a nose job.
My second clip is a plea for donations; young girls in need of plastic surgery. It was posted on youtube, but I think it was some sort of a public service announcement. It is pretty ridiciulous to me that people think plastic surgery is a necessity for happiness in today's society. I understand that we have these restrictions and guidelines that we have managed to place on ourselves, but this seems over the top.
Image:
My Response:
This photograph of Ashlee Simpson is another example of a teenager getting a nose job. Yet she denies ever getting one, somthing that came up in class discussion. Plastic surgery is all around us, yet people become hesitant and reserved when asked to talk about their experiences with it. Denying the operation is the easiest for most, since one does not have to deal with the underlying reasons for getting the operation.
Sources:
Gilman, Sander. 1999. Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi
http://www.youtube.com/
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