Mrs. Potato head School of Beauty

                        

Do you ever look around at society today and feel that our view of beauty has more in common with Mrs. Potato head than anything else? Don't like your eyes? Well just pull them out and pop in a pair that you like. Not happy with your nose? Grab one that feels better to you. The problem is that once you've touched one aspect of your face, almost always other parts fall  out of order. Now, parts of you that you were happy with, aren't satisfying you anymore. Next thing you know, you have people who can't smile and have more in common with a creepy latex horror mask than an actual human face.

                                     " Come on. You know I'm beautiful. "

It's amazing to me how something with such good intentions ( plastic surgery was originally created to help people who were severely mutilated in accidents or fires) can suddenly be twisted to the point where now many people in our society are just prettier, less stitched up, examples of Frankenstein. However, while their stitches might not be visible, there is often a rather unsettling feeling that something is off when looking at their faces.

I work in a town where people have plastic surgery and botox on a regular basis. To them, it's no different than a trip to the spa. "What did you do today?" " Well I went to a board meeting, had lunch with a friend, got a few botox injections, went to my yoga class, etc..."

                                        Looks REAL relaxing doesn't it?.


The sad thing is that all of these women have started to look alike. Without their husbands in tow, I often confuse them for each other. Herein lies my main problem with all of this. When you begin altering God's design, you begin to create a much more narrow idea of what beauty is. Beauty comes in SO many shapes and sizes, but rather than opening our mnds to all of this potential beauty, we would rather limit ourselves to the most popular or current definition of what beauty is.
Rather than encouraging women to love themselves and be content with who they are, we  encourage them to change whatever they may not like about themselves. The irony being that those around them probably liked these things about them the most. They are usually the things that made them unique. That made them memorable. Also, very rarely are these women content to just change one thing about themselves. Typically this one change leads to many more. The problem is these changes are only skin deep while the main problem goes much farther down than that.

I doubt that this will change. Rather, it will either continue to escalate to the point where no one will exist who is unchanged OR it will go drastically in the opposite direction where truly natural beauty will become in vogue. Where people's ethnic noses, thin lips, etc will be embrassed as the true ideal beauty.

What are some of your thoughts on all of this? Do you see these bodily or facial alterations as a positive thing for our society or a negative? Have you experienced any of these procedures? If so, what were your thoughts or feelings afterwards, or the thoughts or feelings of your friends or family afterwards? Do you think that art will be affected if these bodily changes become more and more in vogue? Will portraits all look quite similar when people are so similarly altered? Will artists begin seeking 'ugly' people in an effort to make their work stand out?