This headline caught my attention a couple of days back and I have been pondering over it ever since. 12 plastic surgeries ? And a young man all of 22 dies because of complications resulting from these surgeries :(:(.
CANADIAN ACTOR SAINT VON COLUCCI DIES AFTER 12 PLASTIC SURGERIES …Tried To Look Like BTS Star
Many years back I had watched an Oprah Winfrey show where people who have got plastic surgery done spoke about why they did it. One lady was beautiful to begin with, but was not satisfied with the shape of her lips or her nose and she had undergone 26 plastic surgeries to correct different parts of her body !
She was just 28…. and watch this short clip below. There is a before and after pic of hers and you will notice that she is truly beautiful and didn’t have to change a thing.
But I don’t want to just dismiss this plastic surgery addiction as vanity. Any addiction has genetics behind it and it has to be treated just like a flu or cancer or any disease. It’s not about will power or the unwillingness of the person to step out of his/her addiction.
This particular headline about the Canadian actor Saint Von Collucci caught my attention because he was just a young man of 22 and it was about getting to look like a Korean star Jimin for a TV series. Couldn’t makeup do the trick ? rather than going under the knife. Nothing can be more important than staying alive, that too for one so young.
The reason I am posting about this is because we need to take a good hard look at the kind of pressures our young folk face today. I don’t think either their parents or the education system is preparing them for these pressures. Just a couple of days back a friend of mine and I were discussing about mentoring young 18 to 20 year old girl students.
My friend mentioned the fact that when he mentored a set of young undergrad students from financially challenged backgrounds, their biggest fear was about how they looks. He also mentioned that their classmates would tease them about this. Am thinking back to my younger days …. yes I was far more concerned about the zits on my face than I am right now, but no one teased me about how I looked.
There seems to be a lot more pressure on everyone to look a certain way and no coping mechanism if they don’t match up :(. Especially TV and movie stars go in for all kinds of treatment that keeps them looking a certain way. Too high a price to pay and no one can stop the aging process anyway.
All I can say to the youth of today – unless you have a major aberration that makes you look terrible (in your assessment), just focus on being healthy. If everyone looked the same then what’s the fun. We all look different and that’s the beauty of nature. And what someone else thinks of you doesn’t make you any lesser or uglier. So just chill and take it easy …
B & K,
You offer a lot to ponder. It makes me wonder about the pre-occupation with appearance. This is partly cultural, partly a means of identification with certain groups or sects, or in this case, drastic measures to change facial or body structure to suit some idealized image of one’s body.
How far does it go? Fashion changes to suit climate or cultural identity. Tattooing, body piercing, or even the tradition of bound feet in China show cultural traditions, which are chosen by members of certain groups to symbolize certain status. Make-up, or shaved legs or armpits, or faces, are not necessarily done for utilitarian reasons.
My point is that any individual will remain an individual under all changes in appearance, even with aging, but character eventually shows, to those who are paying attention.
Katharine am unable to get over the fact that someone would kill themselves just to look like someone else or change the way a body part appears.
I guess I don’t understand that desire. So am unable to come to terms with it.
You are right about the cultural aspect – In our tradition, a child’s head is shaven and ears pierced at their ancestral temple. Sometimes it’s done in two different temples because a grandmother or father or some close relative has prayed for the well being of the child in exchange for donating the child’s hair. My head was shaven twice in two different temples.
Women in India also pierce their nose – South Indian women will pierce on the right and North Indian women pierce on the left 😊.
Am told there is scientific backing for these piercings and for certain ornaments that we wear. Once am sure of the veracity I do want to write about it.
Also the first nose job was done by an Indian some 2000 years back – the father of surgery called Sushruta. But he seems to have done it to help some patients breathe better and for soldiers who lost their body parts in a battle.
Am just hoping young folks don’t kill themselves over how they look and some sense prevails.
Interesting. These stories are reminiscent of beliefs in other places that have cultural significance. I remember seeing photos of African women who had a stack of rings around their necks, in an attempt to lengthen their necks. I’ve heard of gruesome-sounding surgical procedures, such as boring holes in the skull to relieve intracranial pressure, but that is also done today in modern neurosurgery, as well as for tumor removal.
Cosmetic surgery is presumably done for vanity’s sake, and it is big business, but there are those who seek surgery for a variety of conditions that would likely respond to conservative treatment and patience. Hip and knee replacements are common. Gender change operations are getting lots of attention, from advocates as well as opponents.
I can say I wouldn’t submit voluntarily to such interventions. I don’t recommend them to others, either, but I am not the person who has to live or die with the decisions.