Real women

During another night of insomnia, I happened to catch CNN's Newsnight with Aaron Brown, a relatively inocuous, low-key news magazine show that tackles some of the top stories of the day. It happens to be on at the same time it is shown in America, so that means 5am for Eastern European time zone folks.

One of the stories was about the latest Dove commercial, which maintains that "real women have real curves" and features models who are not supermodels, but everyday women. Women who have a little bit of extra weight, who have scars, who are really pale, who have kinky hair, in other words, a better cross-section of reality than any supermodel could ever be. The intent of the advertising was to show healthier images of the female body - images that more American women could relate to. Of course, the advertising mavens of the world presented the contrasting view - that women don't want to see reality in their advertising, they want to see a perfection of the female form, something they could "aspire" to be. Excuse me? Not all of us are built with tiny hips, perfect breasts, and flawless skin. Very few of us "normal" women can aspire to look like a supermodel. Honestly, not all of us want to.

What really got me about the story was that in the end, it showed some graffiti on a print poster of the commercial in a subway station (or similar area). Some young slubberdegullion used a marker to place all the standard plastic surgeon's marks on one of the "chubbier" models, and wrote beside it "One day outpatient visit". While I can appreciate the humor here, ultimately it ended up pissing me off. If you look at that ad, and all those women, they are all beautiful, their bodies are all perfectly acceptable, there is nothing that really needs to be changed about any of them.

Enter the plastic surgeon. I have mixed feelings about plastic surgeons. I am glad that the practice exists for people who were otherwise injured, maimed, or destroyed by accident or illness. But any other practice of plastic surgery is pure vanity for the patient, and pure money for the surgeon. In the end, sure, I could argue all sorts of ethical points against plastic surgeons, but the reality is that people are entitled, if they want to pay the money, to have the procedure(s).

I'll admit a certain fascination with plastic surgery shows, especially E!'s Dr. 90210. My husband likes it because he's a doctor and all doctors like to watch surgery. I like it because it is drama and I can count all the women that come through that, in my opinion, really don't need plastic surgery. But I have noticed something really disturbing as well. Each plastic surgeon has a style of doing the surgery. In the end, all of the breasts done by Dr. Robert Rey look exactly the same. All the facelifts done by Dr. Diamond make the faces look remarkable similar to one another. The body shapes attempted via liposuction and other body sculpting surgeries done by Dr. Li are all alike. The rise of plastic surgery in society is slowly making everyone look the same, like some frightening Looker type world.

Personally, I'd prefer that people didn't look the same. I find the variety in people attractive and appealing. I'd also prefer that people stop trying to judge themselves against some fake perception of reality. Most people in the world are beautiful in their own way. We need to try to stop convincing them they are not.

Kudos to Dove for reminding us what real women look like. I wouldn't have it any other way.