brianmbeck

As an assignment for an English Placement Test for Wright State University, I had to read a very negatively-based article on the digital retouching of photos and films for consumption of our superficial American Society, called "Digital Plastic Surgery" by Sara Snyder, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, and was asked to not only summarize the article in one paragraph, but also write a 500-700 word essay on the personal imapct of the subject and article. I shared this with a couple of people and they suggested I post it here....so I shall now.

I'll spare you the reading of the article, but will ask you to indulge me in my essay, as follows:

Summary/Commentary on “Digital Plastic Sugery” by Sara Snyder, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota

This informative article was designed, I believe, as a rather one-sided argument against the ills of superficiality of today’s media by the practice of touching up, or perhaps over-touching, digital photographs of models, producing an unreachable standard of beauty that we as a nation have subscribed to as “normal”, yet unattainable in real life. I say “one-sided” as it only presented the negative side of the issue as opposed to its positive side, if there be any, and therefore, somewhat biased. While it was long on supportable facts, it simply didn’t present both sides of the argument. My essay on the subject is as follows.

On December 31, 2001, I began a new journey and phase of my life. You see, I underwent Gastric Bypass Surgery on that date, and to this day, my life has not been the same since. Prior to surgery, I topped out at a mighty 397 pounds, and was unable to do many of the everyday tasks that most people take for granted, such as walking or standing for any length of time over a few minutes, thus impeding my life in general. I had developed runaway high blood pressure, was starting down the road to diabetes, and the sociological rewards of my size were a true exercise in emotional pain. I couldn’t do many of the things that I had once enjoyed – riding roller coasters, shopping with my wife, hiking in the woods, bicycling, performing as a live musician – and was thusly sentenced to a life of basically doing a lot of sitting around because it physically hurt to move. This carried over into my social life – not seeing friends or family, and when I did go out into public, I was forced to endure the stares, under-the-breath (and sometimes not so under-the-breath comments) of people I didn’t even know about my size, most of which were terribly disparaging.

That all changed on December 31, 2001. Within the next eighteen months, I had lost a total of 230 pounds, and had become a man of a spry 167 pounds. I could once again do not only all of the things I had once enjoyed years prior, but do them more frequently and better than before. Even the social aspects of my “new” body and accompanying mindset were a supreme blessing, since not only was I no longer the “fat guy,” but now I was the: “Did you just SEE that guy?” person that I had secretly always wished I could be. People, not to mention just the members of the opposite gender, became attracted to me on sight alone, and with the inflated ego that came with it, allowed me to develop a personality, charisma and charm that I had once stifled, since no one really wanted to know the aforementioned “fat guy” that I was before.

Then one day, the idea hit me like a bullet between the eyes: I had become a “poster child” for the superficial nature of the society I was living in. I was hated at 397 pounds, but loved at 167 pounds. Why? I concluded that thus was because I was much closer to society’s “ideal” of beauty, becoming the slim outdoorsman and musician that I had long wished to be. Suddenly, I was attractive and interesting. Was it all because of a change in my looks? I certainly thought so.

Ms. Snyder’s article presented the negative aspects of the “world” of digitally-retouched photographs and films of our country’s beloved models and stars, oftentimes distorting their actual physical looks, many times without their permissions. I would agree with her that this is a terrible shame, does nothing more than to further the supposed brainwashed quality of society’s view of true beauty, and it is sad to say that it has been happening for as long as I’ve been a member of the human race, and shows no signs of waning anytime soon, despite the efforts of people like Jamie Lee Curtis, whom, while doing a magazine spread in the periodical “More” sought to dispel much of that quality of unattainable beauty.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: "Amused To Death" by Roger Waters

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