Man-made beauty

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1264103.htm

China’s man-made beauties line up

Media coverage of plastic surgery often innately ridicules the trade- creating a double bind that at once encourages women to go under the knife, yet chastises them for it. Some select lexicon from the article:

* The women, wearing one-piece dresses and boots, paraded across the stage, mugged for group portraits and presented gifts that would be auctioned online to raise money for poor children.
* “At first the changes were not that significant,” said Liu Yajuan, who does not work but practices Japanese-style dance in her spare time.

This ‘man made’ beauty contest raises a number of issues. Can it simply be seen as promoting the cosmetic surgery industry, ’sanitizing’ it (if we weren’t told these women had gone under the knife, would we be able to tell the difference? We don’t even see these procedures, which in turn places the blood and flesh at a distance), and handing out an ideology that says cosmetic surgery is ‘alright’, and even prized?

Or can it be seen as subversive? These women are not ashamed to admit that they have had plastic surgery, many of them multiple procedures (up to 13). In parading their newly constructed bodies and faces, they in turn become self reflexive and spits the scorn back into the faces of critics- “Yes, I’ve had plastic surgery, and I look gorgeous. So?”

The debate can go on forever… it can be linked to the same arguments about hyperfemininesexuality and the willingness to again become ‘pin up girls’ for men. “Because you’re worth it”. Afterall, the people who control the cosmetic surger industry are mainly men- no doubt this contest was created by men who wanted to convince more women that going under the knife is not shameful, but warrants admiration and reward.