Snarkattack

I wasn’t very happy with the last article I tried to write, hence a delay in this one’s appearance. Inspiration was at a bit of a low, due to my dismay over my previous article’s poor conception. Thank goodness for television. There I was, moping with my laptop, and Dr. 90210 comes on in the background. It’s a series, part reality show, part documentary (yes, there is a difference) and typically follows the day in a life of a cosmetics surgeon, as well as one of his patients — the location being Beverly Hills, California, USA.

So… what’s with the title then, you’re wondering? Cosmetic surgeons’ lives can’t be all that sad and no, according to this show, they don’t seem to be. They’re not perfect either. Sadness of the patients, perhaps? Closer.

Actually, I just chose that title because it is also the name of a novel by former Japanese Nobel prize winning author Yasunari Kawabata. Thought it might impress you or trick you into thinking I’m smart. (It’s all bluff! Sadly, I’ve not yet read this novel of Kawabata’s).

Seriously, now, I thought it a very fitting title because one can read that title in so many ways: beauty as a cause of sadness (because one does not possess it), beauty is sadness (because now it can be bought), or the notion of beauty obscuring what truly makes one sad – using one’s appearance to hide emotional pains and so forth.

It does also apply more literally: I feel sad to learn of a teenager, who seems pretty bloody gorgeous to me, resorting to cosmetic surgery at the age of seventeen and her mother wholeheartedly approving. The mother, who deserves credit for supporting her daughter’s decision, explains that if it will make her daughter happier about herself, then why not have cosmetic surgery?

Her daughter is visiting a cosmetic surgeon because she wants a breast augmentation. This is slightly worrying, to me at least. First of all, she’s seventeen. Her body will not yet have stopped growing, or developing. Also, her mother supporting the daughter’s decision – what kind of message is this giving her child? That good looks (of a stylised kind) are important and that it’s perfectly normal to fork out however much it is for a boob job? That her daughter could not be considered beautiful without the aid of what looks to be a fairly invasive procedure? I’ve witnessed a few nose jobs on this series and even that looks… violent.

You probably think I’m overreacting, but let me explain. If these sorts of procedures become more culturally acceptable, then a particular definition of what is considered attractive becomes narrow, and even worse, tenacious. It becomes locked in to people’s minds that you need to look like blah blah blah in order to be considered attractive when in fact there are countless definitions of beauty, of attractiveness. At least in my mind. I’m hoping that I’m not alone in this view.

Oh, and need I remind people that purely physical attributes do not completely help in this definition? For people like me, thank bloody god. You knew that though, didn’t you, canny reader? Let’s face it, if I were an absolute hottie, I’d probably be at some pub frequented by randy uni students and allowing them to sprinkle salt on risqué spots on my curvaceous form so that they can lick it off as part of the mandatory tequila slammers.

I wouldn’t be here, admitting to you that I’ve even heard of the series Dr. 90210 let alone viewed it. I digress, again — always making it about me. Enough jokes: this seventeen-year-old says she’s getting bigger boobs so she can go to the beach. What, so she can’t go to the beach with her current, natural breasts? She isn’t even flat-chested!

Personally speaking, I think it may have something to do with cosmetic surgery being more culturally acceptable in the States, because of its popularity. The surgeon who will be operating on the girl says, and I paraphrase, that some kids want a new car when they graduate while some girls want a new rack. A new rack? She’s a person, not a piece of meat! He could have said ‘a new look’, or ‘a better/different body’, but the phrase ‘new rack’ implies that there was something wrong with the old one, or that it wasn’t all that good to begin with. The human reduced to an object that can be replaced, upgraded, modified, and so forth. I guess in ten years’ time, I’ll find out I’m really a Replicant, won’t I? Sheesh.

Aside from the much-maligned media, a part of me wants to pin this generalised lack of self-esteem on the mother. Yes, I understand it’s a hard task raising a child, hence my vowing never to do it (mainly for medical reasons) but after nearly a decade of therapy, it’s become pretty clear to me that the mother-daughter relationship can be as constructive as it is destructive. It sounds painfully obvious, but it doesn’t seem to be, at least in my magical universe.

Again, we return to the teenager. I find myself wondering why her mother hasn’t told her that there are more important things in life than having nice funbags to fill your bikini, or why she shouldn’t wait a few years till her body reaches full maturity. Or that her daughter is beautiful the way she is. Or that this could lead to a lifetime obsession with attaining the perfect physical appearance (the breast augmentation would be her second cosmetic procedure. She had already had a nose job) Perhaps the cameras didn’t capture any of that dialogue?

Oh, but hang on, what about peer pressure? Surely this teen’s friends have something to do with her not being fully pleased with her own appearance. Of course. Apart from the media, who reinforces their ideas of what is beautiful or not? Their parents is my guess. I knew one morbidly obese girl in high school who delighted in reminding me just how far from perfect my physical appearance was – so as to deflect attention no doubt from her own issues. I just tried to block it out as much as possible. It didn’t really seem very different from my own mother’s ranting about what I should be wearing. Nobody likes to be told they’re ugly, but I sailed through high school thinking that surely there were more important things, and it turned out to be true.

There must be some other ways to boost the self-esteem of people, and I know parents aren’t fully to blame, but they don’t take on as active a role in nurturing their children’s confidence as they could. When they do have any influence, we only remember the negative. It took my own mother a very long time to realise or admit that she was responsible for some of my self-esteem issues and despite how destructive it has been, it hasn’t actually made her stop. But hey, she’s probably treating me the only way she knows how – by passing on what she experienced from her own mother. It’s all rather sad.

You’d think parents would cotton on and realise that boosting their childrens’ self-confidence is actually cheaper in the long run! Think about it: if you have healthy self-confidence, then you don’t need to fork out money for the boob job, or therapy later on down the line. Hmm, come to think of it, perhaps my folks would have been better to just get me ‘a new rack’ – it would have worked out cheaper than all that money spent on therapy. I’ve always wanted bigger breasts – these days, who doesn’t?

This article first appeared on Blogcritics at http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/09/18/174443.php viewable here.