Compare And Contrast South Korea And Cosmetic Surgery

Smith focuses on Koreans’ desire to achieve or acquire Caucasian like features. He examines South Korean history in order to uncover the reasons why plastic surgery became so important in South Korean culture. He also explains the benefits of having an attractive appearance not only for social purposes but also for work.

Plastic surgery is one of the most controversial topic today. But the real question is, what is the reason? Beauty is one of the main things America celebrates, and reality tv is slaving our minds into believing if you’re not pretty, you will not make it big, whether in the television industry or not. A study published by APF found that attractive real estate agents were able to sell homes at a higher price than marketers that were not attractive. Other companies have explored the matter, and they have found beautiful people tend to make money and get promotions more often. Jobs like modeling have destroyed most people’s self-confidence. When people began to complain about people being more beautiful than others, we came up with a solution:

Plastic surgery began as bodily reconstruction for wounded soldiers in World War I. The surgery developed in stages, starting with correcting traumatic injuries and deformed facial features. The more cosmetic focus began in the 1970’s, with creating “perfected” facial features and making aesthetically pleasing body parts. Cosmetic surgery boomed in the 1990’s, with 1.2 million procedures performed in the United States alone (plasticsurgery.org). The swiftness in which these procedures have infiltrated society has lead to a change in our view of the value of the body. The modern ease and accessibility of cosmetic surgery has intensified the need for external beauty and has influenced the loss of personal identity.

Feminism is secondary as the means to challenge the abnormal body which generates suffering. Cosmetic surgery was found to be important as a solution to problems of self-identity. Popular representation of surgical culture authorizes and expresses its normalization and is reflected by post-feminist ideologies.

Much like in Huxley’s, Brave New World, the American beauty culture’s emphasis on physical appearance has led to a stereotypical perception of true beauty. Those who favor a societal standard of beauty suggest that the expansion of the cosmetic industry is economically beneficial. However, the truth of the matter is that due to low self esteem individuals seek cosmetic surgeries with adverse effects are committed to and develop eating disorders in order to be considered beautiful.

In South Korea, specifically Seoul are filled with plastic surgery clinics causing the country to becomes the world’s highest rate in cosmetic/plastic surgery . When visiting a clinic, most women’s ideal image would be K-Pop idols,generally, the common factors are double eyelids, v-line face, and slim body. It has been estimated that one out of five South Korean women has had cosmetic work done, compared to about one in 20 American women, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. In 2013, American approximately spend $12 billion on cosmetic surgery whereas in South Korea, the price is roughly $7.5 million even with a mass amount of clients, all stated by Chang and Thompson, ABC News. The reason being is simply because “in South Korea, each surgery only ranges from $2,000 to $4-5,000” said Choi, a foreign client who comes to South Korea to undergo plastic surgery. Nowadays, not only adults but teenagers are also eligible to undergo surgery with parental consent. Adults tend to have plastic surgery to stand out from others while most teens want to fit in with peers. According to American Society of Plastic Surgeons statistics, 63,623 cosmetic surgical procedures were performed on people age 13-19 in 2013 according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. However, not all surgeries is for cosmetic reasons. In

Before 1992 women would undergo silicon plastic surgery because that have undergone mastectomy. Perfectly healthy women also undergone silicon surgery to feel beautiful. The author argues that one don’t need to have a bigger bra size or to undergo any type of physical surgery to be successful. People undergo dangerous procedures in multiple country to be beautiful and to fit in. In china the upper-class girls clip their feet to be beautiful and to be feminine to the guys. In Africa they wrapped their head to get a cone-shaped head in order to be considered intelligent. The media has manipulated young the audience. They audience think since a lot of celebrities are doing it then its ok to do it. People persuade the Hollywood image to beautiful.

“Kingdom of Plastic” is a fitting name for South Korea where one out of five women have admitted to having some sort of cosmetic surgery procedure. Most Asian countries, including South Korea, have very specific criterias for judging if a person is beautiful. Common beauty expectations for both males and females are high noses, big eyes, and narrow chins. Due to the nature of an Asian bone structure, it is highly unlikely that the previously mentioned beauty standards will occur naturally within a body. Many turn to the growing trend of plastic surgery to achieve an aesthetically pleasing face. South Korea is the world’s capital in plastic surgery, and people from all over the world, especially from other Asian countries, visit to receive cosmetic procedures.

Marketing campaigns have been structured to encourage cosmetic surgeries in ways that attempt to generate demands. For example since 1983 in the USA, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (ASPRS) has attempted to expand its services of cosmetic surgery through a marketing campaign of press release that showed pre and post operative pictures as well as educational brochures (Gillespie 1997, p.76). In addition to that since costumers don't decide to undergo surgical procedure over night, providers need to keep a high profile by increasing advertisements and awareness through women magazines, local news papers and other types of communication (Gillespie 1997, p.76). Cosmetic surgery, which aims to improve individual’s body physique, encourages women to see imperfections as illness (Gillespie 1997, p.74). This form of ideals, that embraces only certain types of female bodies as normal and feminine in accordance to size, weight, shape and often color of the body, ignores natural diversity of women. The normalization of cosmetic surgery not only supports the capitalist system and enforces gender norms into society but also transforms normal body parts and the changes the natural process of aging into abnormal. For example nowadays it is very common to hear someone saying that an individual is ugly or fat and therefore needs to undergo plastic surgery; or questions why someone who is so wealthy would not pay for cosmetic surgery to fix certain parts of their body, which are considerate to be unattractive or abnormal according to the cultural norms. Consequently, the more people select to have cosmetic surgery procedures to create a beautiful face and body, the more ordinary looking individuals will become to be perceived and evaluated as ugly (Morgan 1991,

Society’s ideals of beauty differs throughout the world. The American and South Korean standards of beauty are vastly different which is interesting to compare. I was intrigued by this topic because of many Korean shows that I watch and I’ve realized a major difference in fashion and beauty between these two cultures. American and South Koreans follow different trends, and undergo plastic surgeries but they are often influenced by the same source which is the media.

Pressure in both the Starters, and in South Korea, is thrusted upon individuals to ‘perfect’ themselves. 19 year old Lim, a translator on Korean TV, felt the need to have surgery done on her jaw and nose, “‘I guess everyone wants to look like K-pop models,’

In a society so consumed by the ideology of beauty, it makes sense as to why so many women these days undergo cosmetic surgery. The definition of beauty has long been obstructed and changed. In the past, if you look at the woman, you will see they are curvy, during this era being thin meant you were poor where as a beautiful and wealthy woman would be plump because she could afford fine dining. As society has changed, being slender has become the new trend, creating the idea that in order to be truly beautiful one must be thin. The movie stars in Hollywood, although most people realize the beautifying changes that are made to the pictures, this idea of 'beauty ' and 'desire ' still lingers in the mind of whoever comes across it. Our society is bombarded with several different ideologies of beauty but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The beauty standards that have been set should not be what are shaping people around the world and influencing them to go through with plastic surgery. The use of plastic surgery has changed from a medical procedure used to reconstruct the wounded or people with birth defects to reconstructing something people do not like about themselves. Plastic surgery was used during WWI in 1910 and after the war, skin grafting grew. The first training program in the United States was in 1924 thanks to Dr. John Davis. In 1950-1959, plastic surgery was used broadly to repair cleft pallet. It wasn’t until about

Plastic Surgery has become a worldwide epidemic in today’s world. The number of plastic surgeries continues to increase since 2010. In today’s day and age, plastic surgery is one of the most popular and requested procedures. Females are opting to have plastic surgery because they dislike their body image. Society has impacted many people by brain washing them to believe that a person’s body has to be perfect. In order for one to be considered beautiful, television and media influence people’s perceptions of beauty.

The subject of plastic surgery in America is still a taboo since it attributes to the idea of being ‘unnatural’ and a ‘plastic monster’. Most popular surgeries in the country include eye lifts, liposuction, and breast enlargements. Those who have gotten these procedures are likely to keep what they have had done in order to not be shamed by others who may not support artificially changing one’s appearance. Many people may know that South Korea is known as the plastic surgery capital of the world. Plastic surgery was once a major taboo in Korea, where those who have gotten it done would be looked down upon on by family and friends and be ostracized by society, but now the pursuit of perfection has made cosmetic surgery much more popular and open to the public. About one in five women in Korea would have some kind of plastic surgery done, and many neighborhoods and subway stations are lined with advertisements and billboards to promote clinics by showing before and after photos (Graham, “Popular Surgery Shrouded in Shame“). In my experience of living in South Korea for a few months, I did notice that there were many cosmetic surgery advertisements in certain districts of Seoul. In those areas, I would typically see women’s faces all bandaged up from those procedures that got done and they wouldn’t care if people judged.

As the Korean wave becoming popular all over the world, more and more people also want to try to imitate the faces of Korean stars or improve their appearances in order to become more beautiful. So, the industry of plastic surgery in South Korea has drawn many tourists’ attention. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), the number of “individuals in South Korea who undergo plastic surgery have reached approximately 20,000 per 100,000 of the general population” (Seok-Chan, 2013). It makes South Korea become famous as a country with high technology of doing plastic surgery. The Korean National Assembly also passed a medical law in 2009 in order to provide a legal basis for hospitals to attract foreign patients from overseas countries (Seok-Chan, 2013). Moreover, the cost of plastic surgery in South Korea was 80% lower than that in the US or the UK (Denisenko, 2010). As a result, many people in different countries have travelled to South Korean for doing plastic surgery by