I Want A Famous Face

[annuin]

Has anyone seen that MTV show? Am I the only one who finds it profoundly disturbing?

The premise basically is that they're following people, early twenties, who want the face of a famous person, and are actually going through plastic surgery to look more like that person.

When I tuned in they showed a guy who wanted to look like Ryan Phillippe (Reese Witherspoon's other half), and he'd gotten out a $5000 loan to have a nosejob, picked his plastic surgeon randomly out of the yellowpages, and gotten the surgery. Of course just picking someone out of the yellow pages is a Really Bad Idea (tm), I can't even comprehend why you'd choose a surgeon that way, especially not one who's doing surgery on something as important as your face. Needless to say it didn't go very well, and he has a crooked nose now.

Then they cut to a pair of twins who wanted to look more like Brad Pitt and showed them going through the surgeries. Two weedy looking guys, one with skin worse than Freddy Kruger. That actually was what all three of those guys looked mostly like... lanky with bad skin and average looks. I have to say, that post-op the twins did look a lot better. They didn't look much like Brad Pitt though.

Supposedly next week a girl is going under the knife to look like her idol Britney Spears, she wants to work as a Britney impersonator.

Now while I can understand not being entirely happy with your face or body, and wanting to change things about it, I don't think I could go to a plastic surgeon and ask to look like another person. Looking better and changing stuff sure, but not trying to be some kind of bizarre carbon copy of someone else.

And on the topic of plastic surgery, we were on the subway to Grand Central last night after karate, and there was a woman who had to be late 50s or early 60s, who'd very obviously had a facelift. Obvious because altogether way too many facelifts seem to have the skin around the eyes pulled too much back, so that they look as though their eyes are going to pop out. It's similar to the way you'd put fingers in the corners of your eyes and pull back as a kid to pretend to have more slanted eyes. Joan Rivers has that skin-too-tight-over-bones look too, it's scary.

Comments

[silverthoughts.livejournal.com]

Plastic surgery is always so scary. Look at what happened to Michael Jackson. He was such a beautiful man until he went nuts.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

He's rumoured to have something like body dismorphic disorder though, which is basically that he loses the ability to kind of objectively see himself. Similar in a way to anorexics still seeing themselves as fat.

[lucidiot.livejournal.com]

I don't have cable and therefore, have no MTV. It's hearing about things like this that make me glad for that fact

[thetragicclown.livejournal.com]

"When I tuned in they showed a guy who wanted to look like Ryan Phillippe (Reese Witherspoon's other half), and he'd gotten out a $5000 loan to have a nosejob"

I can think of much better things to spend $5000 on.

As for plastic surgery in general, I'm pretty happy with the way I look. I MIGHT be tempted to go for a bit of liposuction, but that would be my limit.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

I doubt you need liposuction. And what you think you need liposuction for is probably curable with regular hours in the gym ;)

Anyway, if I was really unhappy with my nose I could justify spending $5K on fixing it, as having something like that can really boost the way you feel about yourself if you're extremely self-conscious about how you look. However, there is no way I'd ever just randomly pick some surgeon to work on me, I'd need references, first hand accounts, etc. People can just execute such completely lousy judgement in such important things sometimes, it's amazing.

[thetragicclown.livejournal.com]

"I doubt you need liposuction. And what you think you need liposuction for is probably curable with regular hours in the gym ;)"

Alas I suffer from a chronic disability that prevents me from partaking in strenuous exercise. You may have heard of it by its Scientific name of "Ireallycannotbearsed". :P

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

So instead you'd choose a potentially fatal and unnecessary surgical procedure (yes, liposuction is that dangerous, and those risks are often not known)...

You know, I'm not the slimmest person in the world either, but I know that my excess pounds are there because I don't work out and don't always eat as healthily as I should, so I can't really complain about what is essentially my own fault ;)

Hence punishing myself twice a week with kyokushin and twice a week with bikram yoga ;) I'm only young once, might as well work towards getting the body I want while I'm still young enough to do so and appreciate it, rather than resent myself when I'm older for squandering my youth by being unhappy with my weight/physique.

[thetragicclown.livejournal.com]

I can do cycling. Cycling is very enjoyable, and healthy too!

Now if only I had a bycicle.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I have arguments with a friend about this. The way she sees it, we all engage in forms of body-modification (piercing, tattooing, haircuts, make-up), and plastic surgery is just another body-modification. The way I see it is that there's a huge difference between adorning your body and hating it so much that you pay someone to cut chunks of it off. We can't seem to resolve that one...

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Well, both are body modification, and body modification can be more extreme than just piercing and tattooing, just look at some of the more extreme stuff on bmezine.com like bifurcation of the tongue, nullification, implants, etc.

If anything, "regular" plastic surgery is more socially acceptable than many modifications.

I have no problem with people engaging in plastic surgery, in principle. I do have issues about wanting to look exactly like someone else. If you're improving on what you were given and add to that, that's understandable for me, but I can't understand wanting to try and be that other person, that's just bizarre.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

We're back to Michael Jackson, really, aren't we? Trying to look like someone you're not.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Well, he doesn't know when to stop, reportedly courtesy of body dismorphic disorder, which gives you a distorted self-image, much like anorexics still see themselves as being fat when they're not.

I mean, he'd have been fine if he'd stopped after the first or second nosejob, but he kept going, and we know what happened then.

[lillie-nyte.livejournal.com]

My fiance hates it when people say that he resembles Brad Pitt. So, I can't really understand why someone would want to constantly hear, "hey you look like so-and-so".

Someone in my office had liposuction and to me it looks a bit strange that her waist is so small and slightly disproportioned to the rest of her now.

[ippagoggy.livejournal.com]

I think the whole concept is pretty discusting -
but speaking of hotties - you have to go and vote in Keith LJ for the hottest boyfriend :)

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Hah, I think I'll sit that vote out... I'm not going to risk pissing off anyone by picking between Keith and Brian :P