Digital Plastic Surgery Analysis

Digitally altering pictures or ‘Photoshopping’ is the norm of not only the fashion industry but any industry related to print media nowadays. Retouching pictures has not blossomed due to technology, we can trace it back to 1500’s when the period of high renaissance art was fading away a new form of art was emerging known as Mannerism which applauded the modified physic of the subjects over the regular ones(1). Setting impossible standards, models are made to look like virtual perceptions and nothing like their own selves. Being in the fashion industry, models that are already in perfect shape and in the pursuit of the ‘size 0’ are slimmed down to a point where the alteration is very apparent. Their faces enhanced, their curves made

In “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery,” by Camille Paglia, she argues that American surgeons are being too narrow minded with their work because they use the same models as a representation of what their clients can look like. She suggests that getting plastic surgery has become such a normal thing in America and that society pushes women to get work done in order to get that “perfect” look. Paglia also points out that plastic surgery has “leveled the playing field” with wives and their husbands mistresses (694). Also, she believes that plastic surgery is not only critical in keeping a job, but also in keeping a relationship. Although I agree with some of Paglia’s arguments, I view some of the issues differently such as, needing plastic surgery to keep a marriage, that plastic surgery is for non intellectuals, that Hollywood’s environment encourages women to change their looks, and that nothing good can come out of plastic surgery.

The fashion industry plays a huge role in portraying bad images of ideal beauty, which in turn affects today’s society perception of their own body image. Not only are women affected by what is seen and heard about how the perfect body should appear, children of young ages are now feeling insecure and obsessed with their bodies before they reach teenage years. This ‘ideal image’ the fashion industry continues to enforce only focuses on very thin models who seem to be in shape and are very healthy. Furthermore, many people think of the influence from the fashion industry as being human representations (models). Because of the rising problem with the image of beauty within the fashion industry, it is shown that even mannequins and non-human representations (mannequins, dolls, photoshopping) of bodies play a significant role in women’s body image; which causes problems to the individual. (Anshutz & Engels, 2010). Body image and self-satisfaction, eating disorders and non-human representations all can cause harm to the individual, if prolonged.

In the article “Plastic Surgery Junkies: Why Are Perfectly Pretty Women Getting Hooked” by Sally Davis, explained how perfect women are getting changes done to their bodies when it's not needed. She describes how people today are obsessed with their flaws and what people think about them just to fit in. She also said that the main reason people felt the need to change themselves was because of the use of technology and the idea of looking like a model and celebrity.

Beauty is a cruel mistress. Every day, Americans are bombarded by images of flawless women with perfect hair and smooth skin, tiny waists and generous busts. They are presented to us draped in designer clothing, looking sultry or perky or anywhere in between. And although the picture itself is alluring, the reality behind the visage is much more sinister. They are representations of beauty ideals, sirens that silently screech “this is what a woman is supposed to look like!” Through means of media distribution and physical alteration, technology has created unrealistic beauty ideals, resulting in distorted female body images.

Images produced by the media will make people do almost anything to fit American standards of the perfect body. Plastic surgery offers a quick fix to help achieve this goal but no matter how much surgery nothing is perfect. Images produced by media, quick fixes and the outcome of the fixes are problems that women of all ages deal with.

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

Fashion magazines, general women?s magazine and advertisements for beauty products use Photoshop regularly and emphatically to make woman look thin, blemish free, and generally aligned with the familiar American standard of female beauty. By featuring digitally altered woman on their covers and within throughout their pages, these media outlets are promoting this unattainable standard of beauty to woman all over the country on mass. By using Photoshop to erase any fat that might exist on a woman?s arms or thighs and any wrinkle under a woman?s eyes, they create a landscape in which woman rarely see images of other woman who look like them or anyone they know in the media. This use of digital manipulation creates a lack of real images of real women associated with beauty. According the video lecture What Is Culture, a major role of popular culture is to ?give you identity what it needs when it needs it? and the fashion media is failing is failing to do this for American women (J., 2009).

Society creates a standard of beauty for women that often changes along with society due to a new perspective on what it means to be beautiful in our culture. These standards for beauty create what our society believes makes a woman desirable, attractive, perfect, and overall beautiful.  Which then enforces unhealthy and unrealistic beauty ideals that negatively affect women's self-image and their body image because society has attributed beauty to self worth. The result is with the ever changing standards of beauty means women use various ways to alter their bodies and appearance by clothing, makeup, hair, dieting, exercising, and even taking extreme measures to perfect their looks through surgery.

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 pressure to have a perfect body is increasing. This means, more and more people are going to extreme lengths to achieve that thinner-more defined-fit-magazine-cover body. But that “perfect” body may not be all that it looks. That pop star may be Photoshopped or even had some “work” done. Even though, not all plastic surgeries involve silicone or saline implants, as they can be reconstructive, it is exactly what it sounds like: surgery. Some celebrities stand against plastic surgery and, the same goes for Photoshop. With plastic surgery and Photoshop comes scrutiny. The scrutiny isn’t just coming from health experts, but from Average Joe’s and Jane’s. The worst part is that it is being directed towards everyone. Celebrities are the face of a nation, the media is the pedestal, and the rest of the populations are the victims of ideal perfection.

The fashion industry is certainly notorious for using heavy image manipulation softwares to portray a “perfect” image. In 1987, Thomas and John Knoll invented photoshop: the world’s largest grayscale image producer to the human race. Since then, fashion has been drastically modified because of wrong glorifications of a “perfect” image. As stated in http://p.dw.com/p/1Eibq, Photoshop has revolutionized the art of photo processing. Let alone separates our perception of reality from ideas of “perfect beauty” to media manipulation. Fashion designers are constantly blamed for deliberately misleading their customers by creating a product that is indeed, a false impression. Most of all, they perpetuate unhealthy body images by “slimming down” their models and concealing their imperfections/flaws. Perhaps some might argue excessive photoshopping is necessary or by exposing the extended work that makes fashion photos publishable in any big-time magazines they’ll gain something from it, however, that’s unacceptable. Designers in the industry are overusing the digital manipulation software. Recent infractions to show this controversy is Crystal Renn. Renn is a plus sized model who joined the fashion industry after battling anorexia. The determined model decided to take control of her health and speak against the deleterious expectations of models in the industry and the practices that prolonged her bad decisions. On October 31, 2017, Crystal Renn was featured in a French Vogue magazine shoot named, Fashion for Passion. When the photos were publicized, Renn was visualized as a slender, size 2 model instead of the hedonistic size 10 model she is known for. Renn being as resilient as she is, spoke against the photographs, expressing her agitation in being so blatantly misrepresented. She also acknowledged the retouch of the designers photographs, but conveyed the images as “crossing the line.” Crystal Renn is just one of the many models who has fallen prey to

Unrealistic images put pressure on women. Cosmetic surgery is becoming more and more popular in today’s society. Cosmetic surgery includes everything

For many years, society has been told by the media that there a certain way that people should look. We are shown that true beauty in what we see in the media and advertisements. They celebrities and models in the media are beautiful, symmetric, flawless and perfect in all the right places. There is something that society needs to realize. Society is being fooled. The beauty shown in media is not realistic and it is not obtainable. For our public advocacy project, we want to dispel media’s beauty standards and shine a light on the truth. The truth is that the media creates beauty standards with the use of Photoshop. Photoshop involves altering body features to be more appealing and beautiful. This is done by the use of lighting, angles, computer techniques and props.

To begin, magazines are a huge factor towards the youth’s views for beauty and trends. Many fashion companies and brands use teenagers for targeting advertising, since they are the next generation, or the future of fashion. However, the companies only place specific looks, and models expose the next generations to their “ideals of beauty”. The fashion world has evolved greatly through time, but still possess superficial opinions. Only a few types of beauty are acceptable. In fact, some fashion magazines in the United States still use unhealthy models, and heavily edited photos and discloses them as real, or natural. However, France and other countries are stopping the damaging trend. Writer, Venessa Friedman (2017), of the New York Times writes about the innovative laws and regulations for models and the fashion world. Models must obtain a medical certificate from doctors pronouncing them in healthy conditions and weights. The thinner models encourage eating disorders and teenagers to receive liposuction to achieve their smaller physique. To add, the laws decree