What first began as a way to repair or reconstruct injuries, or congenital issues that could impede a person's quality of life, plastic surgery is now becoming as common as seeing a dermatologist to clear up your skin. But as society’s ideas on beauty begin to homogenize, plastic surgery has also taken on a different face. It seems that everyone wants Angelina Jolie's lips not to mention those of Jessica Alba or Katherine Heigl, Nicole Kidman's or Drew Barrymore's nose or Madonna's...
Read moreWhat first began as a way to repair or reconstruct injuries, or congenital issues that could impede a person's quality of life, plastic surgery is now becoming as common as seeing a dermatologist to clear up your skin. But as society’s ideas on beauty begin to homogenize, plastic surgery has also taken on a different face. It seems that everyone wants Angelina Jolie's lips not to mention those of Jessica Alba or Katherine Heigl, Nicole Kidman's or Drew Barrymore's nose or Madonna's cheekbones.
Cosmetic surgery and show business seem to feed each other. Movie actors and Pop stars are ideals to be copied. A young unknown actresses might for example believe that she would do better for herself by getting some work done—a nose job or breast implants perhaps, to make her an easier commodity to market. Heidi Montag for example has gone under the knife for multiple cosmetic procedures (which she first saw as a perfection of her perception of herself, and now regrets.) As of late after the split of Speidi (yes, they were Spencer and Heidi), Montag is now going to have her breast implants removed.
Plastic surgery has become so common in fact that there is now an entire medical tourism industry developing where people can go to get discounted plastic surgery procedures at significantly lower costs. But its not just America that is getting on the plastic surgery bandwagon, cosmetic surgery in Korea and China to give women larger eyes and taller noses is now also very common and to some seen as a rite of passage.
It seems though that the tide has turned and cosmetic surgery has become less a solution and more a symptom of a people's obsession with a certain kind of perfection. Kim Kardashian has recently asked a fan not to undergo cosmetic surgery even if it is to look like her or her derriere. You might think that only women are getting procedures done – but you’d be wrong, many guys are getting chest implants, bicep implants and even requesting to have their glutes look like none other than Brad Pitts. Perhaps this kind of imitation is not necessarily flattery.Though I would think Gisele Bundchen and Fergie would at least be slightly flattered to know that their bodies are being requested in cosmetic surgeon's offices. Or Jessica Simpson would sing even just a little to know that people are coveting her own breast implants.
But attitudes surrounding beauty shift just as unpredictably as the economic, political and cultural climates do. And as science and technology develop as quickly as they have, cosmetic surgery is sure to change with them, molding itself to people's changing fickle requirements. Share your thoughts: would you undergo plastic surgery to improve your appearance?
