The Pitfalls Of Plastic Surgery Summary

Although the media generates the idea that women have no self control, the media also provokes the misleading idea that women have no self confidence in themselves. Through the various messages and ideas that advertisement, television shows, cartoons and even books sell- women tend to lose self confidence in themselves, but the media tends to send the message that women already have no self confidence. In “Love My Neighbors, Hate Myself: The Vicissitudes of Affect in Cosmetic Surgery,” Virginia Blum opens up her articles with an observation about the sudden rise in the number of popular television shows about plastic surgery and the shift of increasing numbers of women that receive plastic surgery. In her article regarding the reasons women desire plastic surgery, Blum states, “...certain conventional cultural values had to be recruited on behalf of representing these surgeries not as vain and superficial but as a route toward glowing self improvement, not as acts of self-

The beauty standard is a culturally constructed notion of physical attractiveness that has become increasingly imperative for women and men. However, this standard has become extremely perilous to men and women’s self-image. Camille Paglia, a highly educated individual who earned her PhD at Yale University and became a highly acclaimed author, explicates this conception in her essay “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery”. Paglia suggests that the beauty standard idealizes women to look like “sex symbols with an unattainable grandeur” (776). She continues to claim that it forces her audience of higher class women to pay large sums of money in order to alter their features ultimately conforming to a very “parochial” definition of beauty (776). Although Paglia is a highly credible source, she illogically appeals to the reader’s fears in order to persuade them. Paglia fails to give any credible outside sources which affirms her preposterous beliefs. Contrary to her inconsistencies, Daniel Akst, a social journalist and graduate from New York University provides his audience with reputable sources in order to persuade his audience. Daniel Akst believes that there needs to be a “democratization of physical beauty” in which instead of attempting to alter the beauty standard, we must first change how we view ourselves. Akst provides credible sources to establish his credibility where he observes cases studies and cultural experiments from scientists and organizations including:

Cosmetic surgery has become increasingly more popular. However, many are unsatisfied with their results. Debra Dunn decided to have cosmetic surgery to fix a bump she had on her nose as a result of a childhood injury. After having two nose jobs and spending thousands of dollars, she was so dissatisfied with her results that she was embarrassed when she left the house and avoided mirrors. When she ventured out in public, she hid behind her hair. Although doctors tried convincing her that her nose was lovely and others would kill for a nose like hers, she greatly regretted ruining the face she was born with. Dunn even felt as though she no longer resembled herself. In an attempt to return her nose back to the nose she was born with, Dunn

Take a step into a plastic surgery center, and the inevitable will be seen. Self-conscious women will line the waiting room chairs, waiting for their own version of the “perfect body.” In “The Perfect Body is Possible,” written by Hannah Termorshuizen, it makes quite a mockery of women everywhere. The speaker addresses plastic surgeons everywhere about how it is their “calling card” to give women the proper body, even introducing herself as a fellow plastic surgeon, with years of experience. With a sarcastic and witty voice throughout the article, the author effectively reveals the satire with outrageous claims. Since the perfect body is not possible, the author has made that very clear on why it is not by showing that it is, by taking on the persona of a plastic surgeon reaching out to other surgeons to continue to work on women. Recently, society is trying to push the movement that there is no such thing as the perfect body. The author has taken it upon herself to satirically show a surgeon that believes in the perfect body, and how it is possible, by means of plastic surgery.

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.

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:

The article entitled “Digital Plastic Surgery,” by Sara Snyder explores the fashion industry’s obsession with making women perfect with computer imaging technology. The practice has become so common and so technologically advanced that people reading or seeing the magazines cannot usually see that the body of the model on the cover does not belong with the head or that the legs’ size have been significantly reduced, as in the case of a photo of Kate Winslet in the British GQ magazine. Snyder includes various perspectives by people in the retouching business, as well as fashion editors, models, and actresses. She also briefly summarizes how the practice has grown from smaller changes to the skin tone to adjusting the sizes, muscle tone, and shape of people’s bodies and faces. Nobody quoted in the article has a positive take on the practice, because it makes the ideal of beauty unrealistic for everybody, even the celebrities who are considered beautiful already.

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

107) Second, magazines geared toward women often run stories focusing on the ordinary woman’s experiences with surgery of the benefits of surgically improving one’s appearance. Also, advertisements typically promote the benefits of cosmetic surgery using gendered stereotypes, with men represented as concerned with virility and professional competitiveness whereas women are investing in aesthetic improvements. Therefore, the idea of personal transformations and self-improvement is not particularly novel but standard approach that has become entrenched in mass media representations of cosmetic surgery (Adams, 2009, p. 108). However, the potential health risks are downplayed and negative outcomes are attributed to the unpredictability of the aesthetic results or poor surgeon selection. More importantly, these frames tend to diverge from the actual surgical experience, which rather being neat and instantaneous, is often complex and painful. Nevertheless, it is the media-mediated frame that dominates the broader social discussion of cosmetic surgery and often reduces it to a consumable lifestyle option as opposed to a complicated medical procedure fraught with potential risks and uncertainties.

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.

We live in a society where people worship beauty. As far as recorded history people have gone to extremes to seek beauty. From foot binding in China to wearing strangulating corsets in Victorian era. People from different race and culture have experimented in every way possible way to look beautiful prior to this popular age of plastic surgery. It’s very common to hear people complain about their appearance, whether it’s their crocked nose, thin lips or flat chest. Remarkably, plastic surgery has been the solution for people who complain. Most people tend to think of plastic surgery as only cosmetic surgery and not as reconstructive surgeries. Plastic surgeries seems to be an invention of modern technology; however its roots lie in the ancient history of India. An Indian surgeon contributed towards the establishment of plastic surgery, it was intended to correct physical deformities acquired during birth, accident, disease or war. These surgeries did not gain the popularity it has today until the First World War. It was during the late 60’s, when doctors started realizing the endless possibilities of plastic surgeries. With the help of this surgery a trained surgeon can replace an amputate body part, remove skin cancer, get rid of unattractive scars and visible birthmarks or rescaling a nose or enhance body parts. Today more and more people from different age groups opt for plastic surgeries to obtain dramatic physical changes. These surgeries were envisioned to restore

Plastic surgery is more popular than ever. According to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS), 43,172 plastic surgery procedures in the UK were carried out in 2012. In general, individuals consider plastic surgery to improve physical features. However, before opting for something as drastic as plastic surgery, people should calculate the pros and cons of it to accurately assess the risks and benefits.

Are you aware of the risks and disadvantages of cosmetic surgery? Cosmetic surgery can be very risky and dangerous if you are not aware of the outcomes. If you are thinking of going through a procedures you need to do a lot of research of what the pros and cons of the procedure you are about to undergo. Cosmetic surgeries are done all over the world and the pricing varies depending on the surgeons, and it can be very expensive. The outcome of the surgery won’t always come to what you wanted but still you have to pay the price. Not only that you have to leave with it and you will want another procedure which you’ll have to pay another amount of money. Why go through all that when? We should be happy with who we are and appreciate what you

Messages within the media indirectly contribute to the rising rate of plastic surgery. Desires to meet the idealisms of media representations are often so consuming that people demand plastic surgery despite all of its associated risks and controversies. To compensate for this up and coming surgical trend, technology has developed more reasonable and attainable options for the public. Millions of operations are now able to be performed on those wishing to fulfill specific gratifcations toward their own personal appearance and/or self-esteem. This is a serious problem in that people are unaware or just simply