BODY PERFECTION: A NEW RELIGION
British photographer Zed Nelson was travelling the world when he started noticing something strange about the faces he was photographing: they were becoming more and more alike.
Nelson then embarked on a five year project which took him to 17 countries and different cultures where he took a confronting series of photographs that capture the lengths to which humans go to alter their appearance.
As the New York Times writes, some of the processes of bodily transformation are “positively medieval.”
“Globalisation hasn’t just given us Starbucks in Beijing and shopping malls in Africa,” he said. “It is also creating an eerily homogenised look.”
Here’s the very erudite and observant Nelson writing on his website:
Beauty is a $160 billion-a-year global industry. The worldwide pursuit of body improvement has become a new religion.
We live in a society that celebrates and iconises youth, where the old, the aesthetically average and the fat seem to have been erased from the pages of our glossy magazines, advertising posters and television screens.
The promise of bodily improvement is fuelled by advertising campaigns and a commercially-driven Western media, reflecting an increasingly narrow palette of beauty. The modern Caucasian beauty ideal has been packaged and exported globally, and just as surgical operations to ‘Westernise’ oriental eyes have become increasingly popular, so the beauty standard has become increasingly prescriptive.
In Africa the use of skin-lightening and hair-straightening products is widespread. In South America women have operations that bring them eerily close to the Barbie doll ideal, and blonde-haired models grace the covers of most magazines. Anorexia is on the increase in Japan, and in China, beauty pageants, once banned as ‘spiritual pollution’, are now held across the country.
‘Westernising’ the human body has become a new form of globalisation, with ‘Beauty’ becoming a homogenous brand.
Here is a selection of the amazing images that Zed Nelson has captured on his travels, each one saying something potent and arresting about the billion dollar beauty industry.
The images are part of an exhibition called Love Me, currently on display at the Perspektivet Museum in Norway.
A plastic surgeon and his wife – Brazil.
A beauty pageant entrant… She didn’t win – United Kingdom.
Women can surgically shorten their toes, securing them with metal pins to fit more easily into stiletto heels. United States.
Face resurfacing. ““Americans spend more each year on beauty than they do on education.”
Ilizarov procedure – to lengthen legs – China.
Oxygen is administered to exhausted body building competitors in their final round of judging – United States.
Vaginal tissue removed during ‘designer vaginal rejuvenation’ surgery – United States.
Winner of the Texas State Pageant – United States.
Woman, age undisclosed at the Cosmetic Enhancement Expo, Dallas, Texas – United States.
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23 Responses to this article
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Frankly Feisty October 31, 2012
Sad.sad.sad.sad.sad.
Wrong.wrong.wrong.wrong.wrong.
I wrote a little something on this issue a couple of years ago…
http://franklyfeisty.blogspot.com.au/2010/03/soft-or-scary.html -
The Huntress October 31, 2012
It’s no secret I have nothing against cosmetic surgery, but some people really take it too far. On the other hand though it’s their money and if they’re happy with what they received it’s not my place to judge. I just don’t think beauty is as homogenised as the Western ideal is. Beauty can be found in most places, it just seems, as a culture, we have stunted our views on what beauty actually is.
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Lydia October 31, 2012
Well, that certainly put me off my lunch…
I think most people would agree that this is bizarre and abhorrent. I’m frightened for my young daughter, who will be growing up with this sort of stuff become normalised.
The 7:30 program on the ABC the other night did a story about female genital mutilation in Australia – it’s becoming a big problem in some immigrant communities, with over 120,000 women in Australia (I think that was the figure) who have undergone FGM (of course, many had it done in other countries). But, seeing that ‘vaginal tissue’ from the newest ‘procedure’ to make your labia look like… what exactly? A so-called ‘porn star’?? How can we reasonably argue against FGM when we are allowing labial ‘restructuring’ or ‘tightening’ (or whatever the term is!). What the hell is going on in our crazy society?? I’m not arguing that FGM is okay – not at all! – just that we need to get our heads straight about the brutality in our own ideas of ‘feminine beauty’.
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Shazza October 31, 2012
Wow those are some incredible photos. The beauty pageant contestant with her non moving face while crying is a remarkable image.
When the pursuit of beauty ends with uglier results it makes for fascinating viewing.
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sue bell October 31, 2012
I feel great knowing this is one religion I can never belong to. Short, round, old and happy.
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Tony W October 31, 2012
“How can we reasonably argue against FGM when we are allowing labial ‘restructuring’ or ‘tightening’
Very easily. Think “informed consent”.
BTW I enjoyed your crack about lunch!
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Janet G October 31, 2012
Why do they call it body improvement when the people who undergo it end up looking grotesque.
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Ella October 31, 2012
I have a number of friends who have had cosmetic surgery, some more than once and most are still not satisfied.
It seems to me that if you’re not happy inside, altering your outward appearance will not change how you feel.
Obviously, there are times when surgical intervention is necessary such as birth defects, after accidents and disfiguring illnesses but many people seek to remady how they feel inside buy changing on the outside.
I’d like to say that Tony W is right, the difference between FGM and cosmetic surgery IS “informed consent” theres just no comparison. Just sad that people feel pressured to conform.
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Rhoda October 31, 2012
Only that woman herself would think she looks better than she did. She has actually achieved the opposite of what she set out to do and extinguished her own individuality.
A shame that her self-esteem has been undermined to such an extent. You can’t fix yourself with a knife.
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Girl99 November 1, 2012
“We live in a society where the old, the aesthetically average and the fat seem to have been erased from the pages of our glossy magazines, advertising posters and television screens”…. unless they are men, of course. The Brazilian surgeon pictured above doesn’t seem to be worried about his paunch. These are very interesting pix but they are a collection of grotesqueries at the pointy end of plastic surgery and that isn’t portraying the wide world.
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Lorrie November 1, 2012
The photos say it all…what are we thinking?
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Jacqueline November 1, 2012
do you think the Brazilian surgeon deliberately meant to draw the comparison between his puppies and hers?
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Lisa November 1, 2012
That is terrible,should we not learn to love our bodies the way they are,I have nothing against anyone going under the knife or doing anything to slow down age,BUT i think some peolple take it way too far ,especially the vaginally surgery and the last image,the womans face may be young but her hands are not.
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Aeron Winters November 1, 2012
Scary. On the other hand, when everyone else has had plastic surgery, and botox, and whatever other strange procedure they think up, those of us who have chosen to be ourselves and age gracefully will be the beautiful minority.
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Steve November 1, 2012
Many associate being beautiful with having more personal power. Beauty may be as shallow as skin deep, but so is any power that comes with it.
There is other more enduring beauty, sadly most of the “beautiful people” don’t notice.
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Anne L November 1, 2012
The last lady with the taut skin and strained facial expression, contrasted with her obviously ‘older’ skin on hands and arms arouses compassion in me, not admiration let alone emulation! She has a lovely posture, good hair (or wig) and is potentially so attractive in a more graceful age-appropriate way.
Instead she looks tortured and rather pathetic, with her vulnerable hands. No feeling of peace or ease about her … she has tried too hard and it’s so sad. How can those surgeons hold her up as a ‘model’ of what can be achieved? She is certainly not the most ‘awful’ eg. of what plastic surgeons may bring about, when let loose by people with too much disposable income … but I just feel sad for her, somehow. Hope she stops NOW! -
Cate November 1, 2012
I was eating a caeser salad when I got to the shot of the vaginal tissue. Thanks. Vomit.
I increasingly feel that women who need to adjust their looks to achieve “beauty” are uneducated and more than a little soft (as in weak).
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Dirty Pierre November 1, 2012
Thanks Hoopla … more pathetic moral panicking
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ellenni November 1, 2012
that poor pathetic women in the last photo with the awful wig. one has to feel pity for her. no matter how she looks she is not young – her hands and eyes tell you all. i am 67 and thanks to good genes look a few years younger. my hair is grey but well cut and i believe in good grooming. i like myself and so too do all my loved ones. my friends all worry about themselves and wonder why i dont.
be happy where you are and enjoy this one chance at life you are given. -
ellenni November 1, 2012
the plastic surgeon and his plastic wife look startled as do the dogs. is he holding them to hide his unaltered paunch?
the beauty pageant winner looks about 10.
the body builder looks like he is about to explode. the vaginal bits are yeuch.
oh and can some explain what the criteria for a beautiful vagina are? are the men being circumcised to look good too? my husband had to be circumcised later in life and it does look better to me. its all in the eyes of the beholder. -
ro.watson November 2, 2012
I am not sure why the headline suggests a “new religion”. In Australia~ there are scarification and other mutilation practices altering bodies in culural initiation which have been going on longer than any of us now living have been on the planet….
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Tony W November 3, 2012
“I am not sure why the headline suggests a “new religion”.
Yes, the world’s oldest continuous culture has some interesting cosmetic procedures:
“The young man is seated on rock while his penis is split open with a stone knife along its full length on the underside. The penis once split open is pressed flat against the rock on which the young man is sitting. The Aborigines explained that this is done in order to make it “lighter and more beautiful”. A red blossom is placed in the wound because the penis is to be as red as possible on the inside.”
Ouch!
The only thing “new” about cosmetic surgery is informed consent and anaesthetics.
