Plastic surgery, a procure used to restore, repair, and reconstruct the body has dominated the 21st century by letting one obtain their “ideal” body. As various types of plastic surgeries, such as, rhinoplasty and breast implants emerge in popularity, a popular procedure used to remove the epicanthal fold of the eyes, has been questioned by some of “stripping” away an ethnic identity. East Asian Blepharoplasty, also known as “double eyelid surgery,” has dominated East Asia, claiming to make one look “younger.” However, the unobtrusive reason for its popularity, to stray away from “chink” is represented by an obsession over “Western” beauty and the effects of “internalized racism.” The experiences of those who went through the procedure and others who went through similar procedures for similar reasons, express how “internalized racism,” has brainwashed the people to conform to a society which has diminished the true meaning of “beauty.”
“If more Asian women were used in fashion and advertising, it would change people’s ideals,” said Grace Park, who was forced to undergo double eyelid surgery by her mother, because of her slanted, one-folded eyes. People of East Asian descent have been the most susceptible to the obsession over “Western” beauty as the “East Asian” face is rare in Western Media. Editor-in-chief of Jade Magazine, Ellen Hwang, says everything in the media consists of the “Eurasion” look, “big blue- eyed blondes.” “Here in the US, even more than in Asia, the models and movie stars you see and who girls want to emulate are Caucasian. Yes, there is Lucy Liu, but most models are Western. And young girls often want to look like those models.” Chinese American, Shin –Yu Wang, who was born with double eyelids and was thoug...
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...t focus upon the beauty “dilemmas,” such as the single-folded and slanted eyelids of Asian women. One subtitle questions, “When surgery adds an eyelid, does it remove your identity?” Dove’s message conveys the fact that distinct ethnic features are truly beautiful in their own unique way.
With the avid support against “double eyelid surgery” from American East Asians, the procedure, despite its popularity, has been displayed as an ethnic “tweaking.” The fiery debate of East Asian Blepharoplasty is one example of how society at large has manipulated certain ethnicities to believe that they are “inferior” by glorifying “Western” beauty and diminishing the true meaning of “beauty.” If one were to consider a procedure to alter their body, they must understand the true meaning of “beauty.” “Beauty” is not defined by one’s outward appearance; it is defined by the heart.
Approximately about a decade ago, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese women all had a distinctive look and features. Single eyelid, thin lips, short-bridged nose and oval shape face are few of the features that distinguish Asian women apart. However, these distinctive features are slowly fading away as the new westernized features are coming in. Through the mass media and their
Being Chinese, I understand first hand how discriminatory words can impact the way that you view yourself. I was really able to relate to Christine Leong’s, “Being a Chink”, and was able to empathize with her feelings of anguish over having a loved one called a derogatory name. Many times I have been made fun of due to my small eyes, flat face, and short stature, all of which are common traits that most Chinese people share. I have been treated differently, asked absurd questions, and been stereotyped all because of my ethnicity. The multiple times I’d been made fun of because I was Chinese are vividly burned into my memory, I can even remember the outfit I was wearing. That just goes to show how powerfully words can affect someone. My
Here is some advice to my younger Asian American self, growing up in a media filled industry focused on physical attraction, accept the things that cannot be changed, especially your own race. Unless going under the knife was ever an option you cannot change the way your facial features are arranged that identifies and distinguishes you as being Asian. This problem you and many other people of color have, arise from media images published in mediums such as magazines that predominately represent the Caucasian race and Caucasian features as being the most beautiful and most accepted. Because of this, Susan Bordo from the Empire of Images explains that these images, “speak to the young people not just about how to be beautiful but about how to become what the dominant culture admires” (21). This admiration of Caucasian features over other racial features explains the media bias that directly contributes to the lack of diversity seen in magazines.
In today society, beauty in a woman seems to be the measured of her size, or the structure of her nose and lips. Plastic surgery has become a popular procedure for people, mostly for women, to fit in social class, race, or beauty. Most women are insecure about their body or face, wondering if they are perfect enough for the society to call the beautiful; this is when cosmetic surgery comes in. To fix what “needed” to be fixed. To begin with, there is no point in cutting your face or your body to add or remove something most people call ugly. “The Pitfalls of Plastic Surgery” explored the desire of human to become beyond perfection by the undergoing plastic surgery. The author, Camille Pagalia, took a look how now days how Americans are so obsessed
Beauty is often described as being in the eye of the beholder. However in modern western culture, the old adage really should be beauty is in the eye of the white makeup artist, hair stylist, photographer, photo shop editor, and advertiser. Beauty and body ideals are packaged and sold to the average American so that we can achieve vocational, financial, social, and recreational successes. Mass media and advertising has affected the way that women perceive and treat their own bodies as well as their self-concept. Women are constantly bombarded with unrealistic images and hold themselves to the impossible beauty standards. First, we will explore the role of media in the lives of women and then the biggest body image issue from a diversity stand point, media whitewashing.
The ideal female beauty in American culture is predominately white (Bankhead & Johnson, 2014). Throughout U.S history, women’s mainstream beauty ideal has been historically based on white standards such as having blonde hair, blue eyes, fair skin, a thin ideal body, straight hair, and thin lips (West, 1995; Yamamiya, Cash, Melynk, Posavac, & Posavac, 2005; Leslie, 1995). Therefore, the features of African American women tend to be viewed as undesirable and unattractive compared to the European standards of beauty (Awad, Norwood, Taylor, Martinez, McClain, Jones, Holman, & Hilliard, 2014). According to Ashe (1995), “African beauty, body and hair have been racialized, with slim/”keen” European features being the accepted standard of beauty since enslaved Africans was forcefully brought to the Americas.” The physical characteristics of Black women such as having broad noses, brown skin, full lips, large buttocks and course hair has been looked down upon throughout United States history (Byrd & Tharps, 2001). In effect, the standard of beauty of European features that were forced on slaves are internalized and currently seen in the standard of beauty of African Americans (A.A) (Chapman, 2007). These standards include African Americans perceiving light-skinned as being more favorable than dark-skinned (Maddox & Gray, 2002; Perdue, Young, Balam,
Liping Zhu shares the dramatic story of the Denver Riot which led to the Chinese Exclusion act in his book The Road to Chinese Exclusion. Zhu illuminates this time of anti-Chinese society in the United States with a large pull for nativism. The way in which Zhu writes about this riot and the consequences that followed shed light on just how anti-Chinese Americans were at the time. Before this time, Asian immigrants were untrusted but never to this extreme. Over time as more and more Asian, specifically Chinese, immigrants arrived the American society felt as though they were being outnumbered in the labor work force.
The media and how it affects our society has changed tremendously over the past few decades. Our population of children who spend a lot of time in front of the television or on social media continues to increase, creating a superficial view of themselves and who they should be. This superficial outlook has been created by the media because it preaches to our society that looks matter. Not only are there millions of advertisements saying to lose weight and buy certain products to be beautiful, but there has been a specific standard of beauty set for models and actresses to obtain. These standards include big eyes, volumino...
Society, especially western, tends to conceptualize beauty through the use of publicity and cinema. We are under constant bombardment from consumer related magazine ads, billboards, television commercials, and movies about what “beautiful” people look like and how we should imitate them. This standard is overwhelmingly portrayed as a white beauty standard. Starting from a very young age this standard of beauty is created in our minds. We want to look like these actors and models; we want to be thin, fit, youthful looking, a symmetrical face and even have a particular race. We accept this beauty standard; we notice our various faults among ourselves and self-critique. We try to emulate the models as best we can; we forget that these standards are not reality. Publicity models and the most popular actors do not represent the majority of us and it is a foolish and unattainable dream to attempt to change ourselves to their beauty. The pressure society puts on us can cause low self-esteem and diseases such as anorexia. But we must look at the antithesis of society’s conception of this white standard, our minorities. Portraying this beauty standard to the polar opposites is more than racist. It is destructive to the minority community in that it creates resentment, low self-esteem, and a perverse hierarchy where minorities judge themselves and others on their proximity to the white beauty standard. In The Bluest Eye, Morrison critiques the white beauty standard that causes the black minority to feel a destructive self-hatred towards themselves and their fellow blacks because their self-perception is an unrealistic and unattainable beauty seen in publicity and films. This research paper’s aim is to present the influence of ...
Reader! It has come to my attention that the human world has been thrown into major conflicts surrounding the ethics of restoring the function of the face, using microsurgery, to those with severe disfigurements (Lamparello). This revolution of the science that led to my creation has almost rendered me speechless! No longer will patients feel hideous in their own skin because of unforeseen circumstances. Oh, how it is a horrid life to live, to be unaccepted by your fellow man, no matter how much YOU try and assimilate! Facial reconstruction is an innovative process that can improve the self-confidence of those whom were born naturally disfigured or were disfigured later in their lifetime. Face transplantation implores my interest simply because of how close it pounds at my wretched heart. When I escaped to a land far from the accursed laboratory I was “born” in, I found documents belonging to my creator that detailed his disgusted thoughts during my creation and final “birth”. It was exceptionally difficult to study his horror-stricken account of my hideous appearance (Shelley 34). When he’d lain his eyes on his obsession for the first time, he promptly disregarded his previous claims of my
The concept of beauty and racism in modern western society is held to the highest of standards for all of it’s members; including celebrities. The perfect woman is described by Odette (2013), as solely for men’s pleasure and domination. If we look on the cover of any popular magazine, the women are usually: light skinned, slender, and tall. Men on the other hand must be tall and powerfully built. Our culture is valued on the basis of how men and women are perceived by their image, making it impossible for the average man or women to achieve the high beauty standard expected in society. Celebrities play an influential role in the way people view themselves, making the need to look like our favourite celebrities all the more desired. A person's
Sullivan, Deborah A. "Tightening the Bonds of Beauty." Cosmetic Surgery: The Cutting Edge of Commercial Medicine in America. N.p.: Rutgers UP, 2001. N. pag. Print.
Flipping through the pages of Vogue's latest edition, 23 year-old Susan seems quite upset. She struggles with the thought of lacking the perfect body and delicate features in order to be considered attractive. Surprisingly, Susan is not alone in this kind of an internal struggle. In contemporary society, every other woman aspires to have the lips of Angelina Jolie and the perfect jaw line of Keira Knightley. Society today looks down upon individuals that do not fit in, whether in terms of body shape or facial attractiveness. This forces them to consider the option of 'ordering beauty.' Since cosmetic surgery is no longer a social taboo in America given its widespread popularity, more people are promoting it which ultimately affects the rest of the world due to the unwavering influence of American culture. Cosmetic surgery should be deterred in the US because it promotes the idea of valuing appearance over ability, gives rise to unrealistic expectations, and brings with it high cost to society.
Image is everything in today’s society as women are increasingly putting more emphasis on their appearance. Women today are growing more conscious of how others perceive their outward appearance. Even in a relatively Oriental society like Singapore, it does not come as a surprise to see women going to Botox clinics during lunchtime hours to receive their dosage of Botox, a chemical used to paralyse certain muscles to prevent wrinkles. Furthermore, beauty advertisements nowadays feature women models that are barely out of their teens. Even with older models, they are usually models featuring in slimming centres or skin improvement advertisements.
There are many cultural differences of body modification in the Eastern world because the Eastern world’s views and ways of self expression are different to those in the Western world.