Data on the prevalence of cosmetic surgery is notoriously difficult to find. This is data on the five most common procedures, according to one association’s members. Pretty amazing.
Surgical and non-surgical procedures (2006):
Most popular procedures by gender:
Found here.
This is an image that graces the cover of a new documentary about intersex individuals called Black and White.
In general, though, I think it’s a really powerful image that refuses to accept that women who are not young, with a teenage girl’s body, and a submissive attitude are somehow offensive.
I’m sort of obsessed with the recent escalation in the standards for “good” teeth. I saw a film from the 80s the other day where Keifer Sutherland had yellow teeth. Yellow teeth! I am so well-adjusted to the new bleaching practices that I was genuinely disgusted. I’m not proud. Adding to all this bleaching are new technologies like veneers and invisible braces and whoknowswhat. As each becomes more and more common, it becomes more and more unusual to have less-than-perfect teeth and the pressure to undergo these cosmetic procedures becomes less about being extraordinary and more about being ordinary. Anyway, I found this in the New York Times (see source in image):
Any guesses as to who it is in society that is disproportionately cavity-stricken?
Or… anyone interested in critiquing the line graphs? That is a really rapid change between ’99-’02 and ’03-’04 and there are a lot of years strangely lumped together. Could it be an artifact of bundling?
Click here (and then click portfolio) for before and after photos of lots of celebrities!
This one, a pair with Gwen’s earlier contribution (here), actually takes a little decoding, and so might be useful to get discussion going in a classroom:
If parentheses = suppressed text, then these parentheses = suppressed speech and, of course, the best way to be liberated from suppression is Botox… not speaking your mind.
Some examples of image manipulation to add to a previous post.
This is from the material promoting Katie Couric’s now ended news anchor job:
Notice that Keira has larger breasts and a flatter stomach on the re-touched poster:
And here’s one that shows how they differently change men’s bodies (head shrunk, biceps enlarged):
This is what Roddick’s arms really look like (but you can google image him and find many many images in which he looks more like this than he does on the Men’s Health cover):
Also see this interactive website here.
NEW: Samantha J. sent in a link to Picture-Perfect, a gallery of images comparing real photos of celebrities such as Jennifer Hudson and Liv Tyler to Photoshopped images of them on magazine covers. Thanks, Samantha!
