Looking at Plastic Surgery from a Sociologist's Point of View

Katie Grooms, Katie Gunderson, Perry Locke, Priya Patel

As the holiday season rolls around, one may wonder: what’s one of the top things on a Christmas wish list? Well, you may be surprised to hear that cosmetic surgery is in the race for most wanted. Men and women around the country are not hesitating about getting under the knife and changing their bodies. Newsweek magazine points out that with even with financial struggles, we may be cutting back on the basics, but we are spending even more money on our looks.

“The economy may be a shambles this holiday season, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the cosmetic-surgery business. After a slight dip at the peak of the recession in 2008, the industry has rebounded in the last two years, even as most Americans were scrimping and saving on so much else. Between 2009 and 2010, Americans spent 3.8 percent less on food, 2 percent less on housing, 1.4 percent less on clothes, and 7 percent less on entertainment. At the same time, we spent 1.3 percent more on breast augmentation, 5.1 percent more on lipo, 8.1 percent more on eyelid surgery, and a whopping 24.4 percent more on butt lifts.” (Dana, "Plastic Surgery is More Popular Than Ever", Newsweek. Dec 12, 2011)

Still after economic hardships, more than 10 million dollars is being spent on cosmetic surgeries in the US, with more than 9 million procedures being undertaken. One may look at these figures and wonder: why do so many Americans undergo cosmetic surgeries, and what are the reasons behind getting under the knife? From a sociologist’s point of view, you could say that it is the way we as Americans were socialized, growing up with an emphasis on outward appearance. Americans feel so much pressure to look certain ways to fit in with the societal norms of appearance, that one will undergo a painful and expensive procedure to do so. Ideals of perfection and beauty have flooded Americans everywhere, molding and influencing our views of how one is supposed to look. For example, a young teenage girl may grow up with the embedded ideal that being size 0 and blonde is the only way to be beautiful in the eyes of others around her. She may wake up every day, spend 2 hours on hair and makeup, and constantly worry about how she looks and how others perceive her. That’s how many Americans live daily, facing societal pressures that have formed from decades of emphasizing outward appearance.

Erving Goffman came up with the idea of the dramaturgical theory, which is “the view of social life as essentially a theatrical performance, in which we are all actors on metaphorical stages, with roles, scripts, costumes, and sets.” The idea of this metaphorical stage is very prevalent amongst celebrities, especially those who have undergone plastic surgery.  The costume of these celebrities is his or her plastic surgery, which is undergone in order to fulfill their role to be “perfect” or “flawless”. Another aspect of the dramaturgical theory is front stage vs. back stage. While these celebrities may not care what they look like behind the scenes when they are simply at home or with their family, the minute they see a camera flash they are automatically in the front stage. Under the front stage, they are faced with scrutiny and the constant pressure to look they way society makes them feel as they should look. Many celebrities use plastic surgery as a way of fulfilling their role to be what they see as “beautiful” because they are pressured by society to believe that in order to be beautiful they must fit a certain image. 

 Heidi Montag is an example of a celebrity who took extremes in fulfilling this role only to be told by her mother that she looked more beautiful before the plastic surgery. The clip below depicts images of the changes that Heidi made to her body after she became a celebrity in the limelight causing her to constantly be on what Goffman would call a front stage. The irony is that the audio in this video is a conversation between her and her mother where you can hear her mother say how she thought Heidi was more beautiful before she underwent the surgeries… “You were much more beautiful before”

One of the best parts of this video that really portrays how women, especially celebs, are feeling like they need to look perfect is when her mom says “It sounds to me like you want to look like Barbie and Heidi responds “I do want to look like Barbie.” Although disturbing, this highlights the truth that women these days feel as if they need to look plastic (like Barbie) and the means to achieving this is through plastic surgery. Below is another video of Heidi’s transformation that has a background song with a great message that says women are naturally beautiful despite society’s distorted image of perfection.

Take a look at the link below for more celebrity before and after pictures from their plastic surgery transformations. http://www.celebrityplasticsurgery24.com/#

As we further explore plastic surgery, we see that the media has one of the largest impacts on people’s opinions. Everywhere we turn, we are being bombarded by images of what is socially accepted as beautiful through magazines, advertisements, billboards, etc. These different mediums are constantly telling us that we need to be sexier and generally more physically appealing. It is reported that 83% of teenage girls admitted to reading fashion magazines for about 4.3 hours each week, and women are not the only victims of the fashion propaganda. As shown in the picture, men are also under constant scrutiny to be healthy, sexy, and fit.

          The pressure we feel when looking at these ads stems from social comparison. Social comparison is the act of individuals evaluating themselves in relation to peers, groups, and/or social categories. When faced with these images of “perfect people” in the media, we compare ourselves and asses if we as an individual are better or worse. Because the goals set by the media are almost completely unattainable, many people feel inadequate and are more likely to support plastic surgery to compensate. Women tend to crave fuller lips, larger breasts, and smaller waists while men strive for chiseled abs and strong chins. Pictures of celebrities with these physical attributes can be seen in every division of media, and often the photos can altered to make them appear even more “perfect”. These alterations can be anything from slight touch-ups to erase blemishes to almost completely changing someone’s appearance, as shown in the before and after of Cameron Diaz. 

After photoshopping, her skin seems more vibrant, any traces of wrinkles or freckles are gone, her eyes are brighter, and her lips seem to shine more. This is a prime example of how the media sets the beauty bar so unrealistically high that men and women feel that plastic surgery is the only way to reach society’s idea of beauty. Media images like these spark procedures anywhere from filling wrinkles with botox injections to lip augmentations.

Now lets talk about when did plastic surgery become such a normal thing in our society? There has been an extremely high increase of cosmetic surgeries performed. In the chart below, you can see the huge jump of cosmetic surgeries performed from 1997 to 2011. Is this new way of life prevalent in all cultures? As crazy as it may sound, nips and tucks are on the rise seemingly everywhere. While the U.S. is notorious for its beauty-obsessed culture, the country doesn't take the top plastic surgery spot in the world by percentage of population. That medal goes to South Korea according to a 2010 data report. The ranking of the top 7 countries in the amount of plastic surgeries goes as follows: South Korea, Greece, italy, Brazil, Columbia, USA, Taiwan.  According to data, the reason asian countries have an increase in plastic surgery procedures g performed is that they want "western eyes." How did asian culture come to the point where they are socialized to think that "western eyes" are the most appealing? This just shows that people in other countries have been socialized to look a certain way, and to them it is to look like "westerners." Their society has defined what is beauty and to them, it is to change their eyes to be bigger.
If I were to ask every student in one of my classes, how many of their grandparents have had any kind of cosmetic surgery, I'm sure the rates would be low, if any at all. For parents, the degree would be rather larger. And lastly, for themselves, or anyone around their own age that they know that has it, I bet this would have the greatest response. This increase in normality of getting plastic surgery in our society today can be looked at through our socialization and the social imagination. The sociological imagination is our ability to distinguish the effects that social forces have on the lives of individuals, both internally and externally. We may consider how certain occurrences and circumstances are derived from an individual, as well as from society. If we consider the way plastic surgery has grown throughout history, we see a change in the lives and attitudes of individuals. In the early ages of our history, women were natural and full in their appearance; men preferred women with fuller and wider hips for child bearing. Today, we are faced with the media which portrays unrealistic images of males and females. Why would such a dangerous procedure become so frequent? Not only is the spread of media to blame, but also the fact that we are constantly chasing a "perfect image", which is seemingly impossible to reach because the way we have slowly been socialized. Toys, like Barbie and Ken, provide little girls and boys with an image to to dream of looking extremely unrealistic. If Barbie were a real women, she would be around 7 feet tall, weigh about 100 lbs., and wear a size 4.. not possible. Instead of plastic surgery being used as a way to repair damage from accidents or birth defects, we are now chasing for something that is not readily attainable. There is a constant and recurring idea of perfection that drives us to do what we do. The more we are exposed to such dramatic images, the more the growth of extremes, such as plastic surgery, will arise and reshape our society.