The Rhino in the Room

[izeveryboyin]

For the last 3 or 4 years now, I have been thinking that the main thing about myself that is cause for complaint is my nose. Typical to many black people, I have almost no bridge, and the base of my nose is very wide with HUGE nostrils. I am working out to rid myself of the remains of the baby pouch, but no amount of exercise or diet change is going to get rid of my bridgeless, wide nose. So I have been looking at finance companies, and am definitely going to do it. My mother is even supportive. (She doesn't want me to get the surgery, but she is suportive of my overall decision because she loves me and understands how it affects my self esteem). My father, however, is furious. He thinks it's stupid, wasteful, and vain. Not to mention the fact that he is afraid for me to go under the knife. So now I am feeling bad about his reaction, but am still going to go through with it. What is your opinion of plastic surgery in general? For or against? Why?

[stilltrucking]

I remember the first time I saw your face. You had that picture posted where you were holding a newspaper in front of you so your face could not be seen. It was an animated gif and just for an instant you would lower the paper and I could see your face. It took me a while but I managed to stop the animation so I could see your face. I thought you were pretty. I still do.

Just my opinion.

I like your face

It is such a nice face

I have grown accustomed to it.

.

I think plastic surgery can be helpful, sometimes.

Nose jobs were very popular with the Jewish girls when I was in high school.

Sorry about the sarcastic comment I deleted it, you reminded me of people who change their names because they sound too Jewish

[stilltrucking]

Beauty in 1960...
Rod Serling offered us a tale of beauties and beasts in episode #42 entitled: Eye of the Beholder. Here's a brief synopsis of the show I found at The Twilight Zone Guide: Janet Tyler anxiously awaits the outcome of her latest surgery. Janet, who's abnormal face has made her an outcast, has had her eleventh hospital visit - the maximum allowed by the State. If it didn't succeed, she will be sent to live in a village where others of her kind are segregated. As her bandages are removed, she is revealed to be very beautiful. The doctor draws back in horror. As the lights come on we see the others, their faces are misshapen and deformed. As Janet runs from her room crying, she runs into another of her kind, a handsome man named Walter Smith. He is in charge of an outcast village, and he assures her that she will eventually feel she belongs. He tells her to remember the old saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Although the show was filmed in black and white, we can clearly see that Ms. Tyler is Caucasian. The doctors appear to have darker skin, nevertheless, the idea here was that the viewers empathized with Ms. Tyler because she was the classic blonde, slender beauty commonly seen in 1960's fashion magazines. As the show closes, the narrator speaks: "Now the questions that come to mind. Where is this place and when is it, what kind of world where ugliness is the norm and beauty the deviation from that norm? The answer is, it doesn't make any difference. Because the old saying happens to be true. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this year or a hundred years hence, on this planet or wherever there is human life, perhaps out among the stars. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lesson to be learned...in the Twilight Zone."

1964
The Standard Continues Episode #137, in Season Five, is called, "Number Twelve Looks Just Like You", and was adapted by a short story called "The Beautiful People". In this episode, we meet Marilyn, a young woman who is about to go through a rite of passage in her community. This rite is called "The Transformation" and it requires citizens to choose among several models of bodies into which they will be transformed. The message here is that this society only sees one standard of beauty and that one will not be happy unless they look and act just like everyone else. Opening Narration: "Given the chance, what young girl wouldn't happily exchange a plain face for a lovely one? What girl could refuse the opportunity to be beautiful? For want of a better estimate, let's call it the year 2000. At any rate, imagine a time in the future when science has developed a means of giving everyone the face and body he dreams of. It may not happen tomorrow--but it happens now, in the Twilight Zone."

Once again, the beautiful people are all white and we don't see any women or men of color. What was this episode trying to tell black women about beauty? The closing narration: Portrait of a young lady in love--with herself. Improbable? Perhaps. But in an age of plastic surgery, body building, and an infinity of cosmetics, let us hesitate to say impossible. These and other strange blessings may be waiting in the future--which after all, is the Twilight Zone."

Beauty 40 Years Later
Some aspects of beauty standards have changed, but not much. We do see more black models and beautiful black women, but when you look at the majority of the more famous ones, (Tyra, Halle, Janet, Vanessa Williams, Beyonce, a few of whom have had plastic surgery, on their noses and other body parts), you can see straight away that they have many Caucasian attributes: small, pinched noses, lighter complexion, lighter eyes, straight, lightly colored hair. It is rare that you will see a model with very dark skin, a tight afro, wide, round, larger nose, and full, large lips. Flip through any issue of Vogue or Glamour and look for that image I just described. Then look for the first image I described.

So, are black women trying to aspire to the white standard of beauty when they seek plastic surgery?

According to Cynthia Winston, assistant professor of psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C., We really don't know much about how blacks are influenced. Most of the research focuses on perceptions related to skin color. Foe most African-Americans, perception can be shaped by their environment. For example, an African-American woman growing up in an all-white neighborhood in Nebraska may be more likely than an African-American woman raised in inner-city Detroit to compare herself with white images of beauty.

(Source: African-American Women & Plastic Surgery: Self-Improvement or Self-Hatred? By Angela D. Johnson, Sept. 2, 2003)

http://www.herhealthandbeauty.com/artic ... urgery.htm

[Doreen Peri]

I'm with jack... i think you're beautiful just as you are!

but i also see nothing wrong with making changes if that's what you want to do... i call it modern day makeup

if i could afford it, i'd get rid of my double chin

[Lightning Rod]

Does the name Michael Jackson ring a bell?

[Arcadia]

I´m not for nose plastic surgery except if you can´t breath or something crashed too bad in your face or something like that... even though that surgery has more potential devasteted effects in men´s face than in women´s. Of course it´s just my opinion..., anyway good luck with what you decide, izzy!!!! (It´s your face! )

[stilltrucking]

I been thinking about getting plastic surgery myself

One of those addadictome operations.

It is a brave new world

Anatomy is no longer destiny

If it would make you happy, and I would dearly love to see you happy, so go for it. If you truly believe that is what it would take.

Just remember
"you are what you are
and you ain't what you ain't"

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[Barry]

I'll tell you a secret. I have a wide nose. The bridge part. I was told by a doctor when I was little that there's a bone (really a piece od cartilidge) that's supposed to go vertically but goes horizontally. I don't know if this is accurate or if he was just simplifying to try and help me. But that's not the secret. The secret is I once let a girlfriend put makeup on me. She said she could correct this "defect" that plagued my self-esteem. I stood in front of a mirror and watched her make this thing disappear. Suddenly my nose looked perfectly normal.
It was never repeated.
But it was a revelation.

Peace,
Barry

[stilltrucking]

My nose looks like a cork screw it has been broken so many times.



I have not been able to breathe through my left nostril for over thirty years. Sometimes I think about packing it with cocaine and go looking for a fight, somebody might hit on the other side and break it back into place.

I think your mother and father are right. And what makes you think you can borrow the money? And at what interest?

Are you really serious? Or is this some kind of IQ test?

[Doreen Peri]

Are you really serious? Or is this some kind of IQ test?

LOL!! i love that... gonna steal it and use it as my facebook status

thanks

[Nazz]

Not a big fan of elective surgery. But I am a big fan of self-determination and freedom of choice. (Devo recorded a nice take on "Freedom of Choice", btw).

[izeveryboyin]

ST, I'm don't know what picture you're talking about. Has it really been that long? I dunno. Just in Case, here is my face now:




I didn't want to post the one with me all made up, but I was too lazy to look for another one. Anyway there my nostrils are huge, and you can see right up them. As for the financing, believe it or not, it is available. A quick search on google turns up a ton of results, but I'm going with one called Care Credit.

D, thank you, I love you. I like that term, "modern day make-up". Can I quote you. Oh and by the way, I think you're beautiful the way you are! So I guess we're even. LOL.

LRod, not every black person who gets a nose job turns into a white woman. It's not that serious for me. I just want them to shorten the width of my nose, and give me a bit of a bridge if possible. Besides that, I LOVE being brown-skinned. The one thing I am vain about is my complexion.

Arcadia... thanks for the well wishes ven though you might not agree! It's very Voltaire. LOL.

Nazz... I am a fan pf self determinatio and freedom of choice also. People are happiest when they are in pursuit of attainable goals. And I haven't heard the Devo song. Will look it up. Thanks.

--k

[Doreen Peri]

See what I mean? You're fricking gorgeous, girl! Model material!

[stilltrucking]

Been a long time for that picture. It was not here on studio eight, I think it was on one of your blogs. A long time ago. I remember I made a special effort to freeze frame that picture so I could see your face when you lowered the paper. Or maybe I was trying to see your breasts? You know me.


They say Barbara Streisand was being pressured early in her career to get that honker of a nose fixed . But she refused because she thought it might have changed the sound of her voice.

If I had the money and was not such a coward about pain I would get my nose fixed. I can hardly breathe through it anymore. But I figure if I keep sticking it in everybody else s business somebody will fix it for me.


I am sorry I said anything about that rhino of yours.

None of my business.

I hope you can borrow the money. b bb bbb but

Beware of any enterprise that requires new clothes. or noses too I guess.



sincerely
jt