A Culture of Plastic Fillers and Botox
Once a stigmatised culture consumed by very few, now an increasing market that has found its way into the public realm of society. If you search into Google for ‘plastic surgery trends’ you’d be overwhelmed with how many different type of procedures are in fashion this season. Examples including thigh gap surgery (creates a gap between your thighs), cinderella surgery (toe/foot reshaping) and the most trending which is butt enlargement. VICE are all over the trend with their documentary videos Buttloads of Pain: Ass Injections Gone Wrong and Colombian Fashion Week — Ass Implants & Couture. Their documentaries highlight the extreme cases people go to in order to achieve this desired look which has been mediated as the current ‘in’ thing by celebrities i.e. Iggy Izaleaz and Nikki Minaj to name a few. And yep, you know the plastic surgery culture is growing when real life Barbie and Ken exist.
In fact popular surgeries revolving the eyes, lips, nose and chin are now described as ‘the basics’ as according to Sparkles in the Vice interview regarding South Koreans and plastic surgery. Like Sparkle and many other South Korean girls, going under the knife is now common and acceptable. As Megan Wilet states in the Koreans plastic surgery obsession is a glimpse into the future article “plastic surgery has become so normalized that everyone talks about it. Instead of where did you get your designer handbag, people might ask you where you got your chin or your nose,” demonstrating exactly how undergoing harmful procedures on the body can be claimed as a normal and accepting thing. Although some try to conceal it, others generally speak openly about their surgeries, desires or future plans. Sparkles exclaims, “I don’t think I have a single friend who hasn’t had some kind of procedure done” where she continues to refer to an absence in the trend as not owning a discman in the 90’s. Yep, society has sure changed. South Korea is well known for their obsessions and openness to surgical and cosmetic alterations. Even parents endorse these surgeries on children as South Korean High Schoolers Get Plastic Surgery for Graduating. If you don’t believe me, then see for yourself has plastic surgery made these 20 Korean Beauty Pageant Contestants look the same?
As Red Aesthetic in when and why did plastic surgery become popular? mentions, “plastic surgery has only grown in popularity over the last twenty years. There are a few reasons for this, the most obvious is that techniques have improved dramatically.” I also believe that due to the openness and greater awareness of plastic surgery in the media, it has become so generally accepted into the public sphere. This occurs mostly in cultures which endorse much of the celebrity lifestyle i.e. America, Britain and Korea. Women studies professor PhD Natalie Wilson states in Extreme Plastic Surgery: How much is too much? stated that “it’s highly noticeable that people have changed the way they feel about plastic surgery; media images and physical appearance.” It has gone to the extremes where the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery believes that the ‘selfie trend’ has increased the number of people undertaking face-related plastic surgery dye to their growing self-awareness in social media. Tess’s articles Selfies: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly as well as The $300,000 Woman go in depth upon some of the reasons why people are so absorbed on their image. Along with the fixation on celebrity culture, unrealistic expectations become yearned for by general people. In the book Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery by Virginia Blum, the author goes into depth about the obsession of appearance due to the influence of media; parents; celebrities and surgeons:
“The before and after pattern of the ugly duckling transformed into the gorgeous centre of attention is a favourite Hollywood story that saturates female culture; in part, it teachers us that beauty is the inevitable “right end.”
It appears as though our society has grown in the developments of allowing consumers to take control of their appeal and image to the degree of body modification. Consumption in the cultural collection of identity can be achieved in various different ways. Featherstone in Consumer Culture and Postmodernism made a clear statement about the consumption habits people go to in the creations of identity,
“The popularity of artistic lifestyles and the various neodandyist transformations of making life a work of art, this project implies a degree of integration and unity of purpose which is becoming increasingly obsolete, despite the compelling nature of some of the symbols of these lifestyles.”
Yet I question how this is any different to piercings and tattoos which are only the lower degree of body modification; procedures which also place patients under a sharp object and into surgical chairs and beds. Whilst this culture expands and becomes more accepting, the one thing that will always remain is people’s ongoing desires to create an identity. As Plastic Surgeon Dr. Kacczynski makes clear, this collective obsession with youthful perfection will definitely continue into the foreseeable future.
