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As medicine and science advance, the human body becomes more and more like a science experiment. Numerous medical studies are being performed on human beings, using with new pills, machines, techniques, etc. While the human body is being experimented on, it can also be seen as a canvas. There is a saying that says, “My body is temple.” Just the same, it can be seen as a canvas. It can be a blank canvas when one is bare; the clothes, jewelery, accessories, shoes, tattoes, and piercings can be the paint. In another sense, body alterations can be seen as the paint. When you split your knee open, get stitches, and as a result get a scar, that scar alters your body, becoming the paint on your canvas. By the time you are older, your body has been altered or changed in one way or another, by scars, sun exposure, and even plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is where the science experiment meets the canvas.

Plastic surgery is where science meets art. Science presents us plastic surgery, modifying the human body, which to some can be seen as art. Plastic surgery is the paint brush, the plastic surgeon is the painter, the human body is the canvas, and the result is the finished product.

Modifying your body can be seen as beautiful. But where does one draw the line? A helpless child that is born with a cleft-lip did not ask to be born with that imperfection. Just the same, a random woman did not ask to be born with small breasts, which can be seen as an imperfection in our image-obsessed America. The typical response would be that the child with the cleft-lip would deserve cosmetic surgery more than the woman with the small breasts. While I certainly agree, I feel torn at the same time. The child would be getting plastic surgery for the same reason: because our society is obesses with beauty and perfection. Let me add, some cosmetic surgeries are not performed to please the patient and make them beautiful, but because their life is in danger. Setting those surgeries aside, there are still many operations being performed for pleasure and to attain a better physical appearance. In 2007 alone, about 450,000 liposuction procedures took place within men and women. Nearly 400,000 breast augmentations occurred within that year as well. While plastic surgery helps people with severe disfigurement, it is contaminating our society as well. Instead of high school graduates receiving cars or computers or college tuition money as graduation gifts, they are receiving nose jobs as presents. Our society is taking the concept of beauty and taking it to extreme heights, and is escalating into a big problem. Little girls grow up watching television, seeing rich famous movie stars with enormous breasts, lucious lips, petite perfect noses, and not an ounce of fat on their liposuction-obsessed bodies. Don’t get me wrong, there are several stars that have healthy yet beautiful bodies and look down uppon plastic surgery, but there is no denying the fact that stars tend to go through some sort of cosmetic surgery throughout their lifetime. And who is to blame them? They themselves set the trends and set the bar that much higher. The younger and the more beautiful you are, the more likely you are to nab that audition. The thing is that these people are constantly in the public eye. They are setting the example to all of America, and to every country out there with televisions and/or internet. Plastic surgery is becoming public surgery. It’s becoming more and more common, and more people are putting “Plastic surgery” on their Christmas List.

Plastic surgery doesn’t make you beautiful. As the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” There is a chance that the patients that undergo plastic surgery will never be completely satisfied with their bodies. That’s just human nature– always searching for the next best thing. Those patients could end up returning to cosmetic surgery in order to help them reach “beauty.” Plastic surgery can become an obsession.  While it is a science, and an art, it is also a curse. A season character on the FX show Nip/Tuck had a motto that said “Beauty is a curse on the world.” Just the same, plastic surgery can be seen as a curse on the world.

Your body is your canvas.

Baby with a cleft-lip.

Nose job

Setting examples to their fans.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Week4_Human Body and Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.