When I was asked to write this article, I thought it would be a no-brainer. Plastic surgery: for or against? Immediately, I conjured up images of the conveyer belt of plastic Barbies being spat out by the various facets of the media industry. But on closer inspection, I found that while still against it, there is a more disturbing undercurrent of misplaced confidence and hypocrisy going on…
Sir Harold Gilles is considered to be one of the fathers of modern plastic surgery, for his work in reconstructive surgery for those who had suffered facial disfigurement in World War I. This, along with other surgeries that benefit the likes of burns victims or prove to be beneficial to one’s health, I’m all for. What I question is how we got from there to where we are today, with surgery being made into seedy, voyeuristically- pleasuring TV shows (hosted by Vanessa Feltz, who was seriously scraping the bottom of her career barrel on that one).
So, I’m all for well-intentioned plastic surgery, where it falls down for me is in its evil twin, cosmetic surgery. Last year, over eight million procedures took place worldwide. Most practitioners now insist that anyone considering surgery, see a therapist before doing so. I’m aware that they are just covering their own backs, but the fact that they’ve had to introduce such measures tells me about all I need to know about the mental state of some of these men and women.
A gaggle of the adverts I browsed for this article harped on about improving your self-confidence, but how is that achieved when to undertake such procedures you must have an idea of what you perceive to be right and wrong in terms of body image, and see yours as wrong. So, where is the ‘self’ empowered in comparing and aspiring to be like someone else ‘normal,’ and going to an external source of plastic to get it?
This is an opportunist industry that thrives on telling us everything that is wrong with us (which we never asked), and how much it will cost to resolve it. Cosmetic surgery is no longer the luxury of the well off. What with rhinoplasty available on a Primark budget, thanks to overseas-butchers looking for their cut and an increasing amount of surgeons on these shores offering breast enlargements and liposuction on interest free credit. All you need now is a page-three pipe dream and an example torn out of any heat-type magazine and you’re on your way. And what if you can’t keep up the repayments? Do they push the fat back in and return you to your imperfect, abject misery?
But while I cuss and rave, I found that I myself was a hypocrite for buying into this game to some extent. I mean, what is make up if not a way to cover up or improve on what’s there? And which girl doesn’t know that you wear black to slim you down on a fat day? Why is it then, that cosmetic surgery is so often vilified and the other creams and potions we use on a daily basis are not? I don’t think it is so much about the surgery as the brainwashing that takes place to coerce many into going through with it. It’s time to stop the madness, and big up the cellulite! Think of it as the new suffragette movement, and me the new Emmeline Pankhurst!