Andy Warhol famously quipped that in the future everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. He never mentioned that to obtain your moment in the spotlight you might have to acquire Brad Pitt's cheekbones or Pamela Anderson's breasts.
I Want a Famous Face, a new MTV series, features seven individuals hoping to acquire the famous face of a pop star (www.mtv.com/onair/i_want_a_famous_face). Two participants, Mike and Matt Schlepp, conclude that their lives would improve if they acquired Brad Pitt's looks. To resemble Pitt, the brothers undergo rhinoplasty, receive chin implants, and obtain porcelain veneers. Sha is an aspiring model; she wants Pamela Anderson's physical features. She receives breast and lip implants and undergoes liposuction. Mia works as a Britney Spears impersonator; she wants Spears' “perky breasts.” Jessica, a transsexual formerly known as Michael, receives breast implants, cheek implants, and an eyebrow lift. She wants to resemble Jennifer Lopez. Jennette submits to a body lift after already undergoing gastric bypass surgery. She wants Kate Winslet's “full-figure” look. Already employed as an Elvis Presley impersonator, Jesse is afraid of losing gigs to younger impersonators. He decides he needs a chin implant, lip injections, and a chemical peel.
Figure 1.
Beauty pageant: The Swan's website
Less than a month after the start of I Want a Famous Face, Fox's The Swan premiered on 7 April. The Swan features 16 women characterised by themselves and by the show's “expert” counsellors as “ugly ducklings” (www.fox.com/swan/home.htm). The premise for The Swan is simple. Each woman is subjected to a strict diet and exercise regimen, psychological counselling, and multiple surgical procedures. For example, Tawnya, one of the contestants, undergoes a nose job, brow lift, mid-face lift, lip augmentation, botox treatment, fat removal under eyes, collagen, fotofacial, tummy tuck, liposuction, teeth whitening, and gum surgery. At the end of each episode, one woman advances to the beauty pageant held at the end of the series.
Figure 2.
How far would you go to look like a celebrity, asks the website of I Want a Famous Face
I Want a Famous Face and The Swan are the latest contributions to an emerging genre of “reality television” series featuring cosmetic surgery. (A similar Italian show called Scalpel: Nobody's Perfect (BMJ 2004;328: 590) caused a storm among health professionals when it was launched earlier this year.) The genre rose to public consciousness last year during the first season of Extreme Makeover (http://abc.go.com/primetime/extrememakeover/show.html). Extreme Makeover includes both men and women undergoing multiple cosmetic surgery procedures. The programme features participants who are altogether dissatisfied with their current lives. They are convinced that cosmetic surgery will permit their new selves to emerge. Are these series worth examining? Are they beneath serious criticism? Does the very exercise of criticising them risk giving the series unwarranted attention?
We should attend to these programmes and worry about the messages they convey. Important changes are occurring in popular depictions of cosmetic surgery. Extreme Makeover and I Want a Famous Face both conform to narrow, stereotypical notions of what constitutes the “beautiful” female body. However, The Swan beats all competitors with its pervasive misogynistic theme and subjection of contestants to a post-surgery beauty pageant. The attractive woman, these programmes suggest, has impossibly large breasts jutting from an impossibly thin body. All signs of ageing must be removed using the surgeon's tools. In two of the programmes, both men and women undergo cosmetic surgery. All three programmes foster the impression that complex personal, psychological, and social problems can be solved through cosmetic surgery. According to the logic of these programmes, problems at home, deteriorating family relations, unemployment, and depression are all rectifiable through multiple cosmetic procedures.
Perhaps the most powerful influence of the three series is in their normalisation of cosmetic surgery. None of the programmes emphasises risks of general anaesthesia and multiple surgical procedures or potential long term consequences. Possible complications of cosmetic surgery are ignored; reservations of family members and friends of programme participants are dismissed. The very language of “makeover” suggests that undergoing multiple surgical procedures is just like wearing cosmetics. Cosmetic surgery is placed on a continuum with riding exercise bikes, going on low calorie diets, and seeing a therapist.
These series, recognising the persistence of a wide misogynistic streak, reveal a more complicated phenomenon emerging. Now, both men and women are submitting themselves to popular understandings of what constitutes “ideal” bodies. Furthermore, as I Want a Famous Face suggests, fantasies about beauty and sexuality often take highly particular forms. The television, film, and music video industries seem to be playing important roles in defining and narrowing conceptions of “ideal” physiques. Perhaps most disturbingly, these programmes contribute to the normalisation of cosmetic surgery.
Cultural critics and clinicians might feel inclined to dismiss these programmes as the lowest form of popular culture. Acknowledging the disturbing messages promoted through the new genre of cosmetic surgery television, I suggest there are social trends here worth studying, interpreting, and combating. The popular appeal of these programmes should worry us.