Cosmetic Surgery Gone Wrong

Han Hegyon Before

Han Hegyon After

In today’s society, beauty in a woman is measured by the size of their breast, the thinness of their waist and legs, the straightness of their legs and nose, and the thickness of their lips. Studies show that 60,000,000 women are dissatisfied with their noses, 30,000,000 do not like their chins, 6,000,000 do not like their ears, and 6,000,000 do not like their eyes. Women around the world are driven by the media and advertisements that encourage them to get cosmetic surgery to achieve society’s ‘perfect body’. At first cosmetic surgery was only reserved for those with physical deformities but as technology evolved, it has become an option for anyone who seeks to change their perfectly normal appearance. But is cosmetic surgery truly necessary?

A Korean woman named Han Hegyon was a beautiful young girl who dreamed of one day becoming a singer. She sang at nightclubs in hope that someone from the music industry would recognize her talent and give her a contract. But life wasn’t all that simple; she sang everyday for months and she had no luck in pursuing her music career until one day she found a flyer that called for all new singers to audition in Japan. Thinking this might be her breakthrough; she hopped onto a plane and headed to Japan, only to find herself singing at a nightclub there as well. She began to think that her failure to accomplish her dream was because of her appearance, her chin in particular.

Hegyon was always insecure about her chin. She thought the only part of the face people looked at was her chin because it was a square shape that stuck out the most. Putting aside her dream, she decided to get cosmetic surgery on her chin. She went to see a cosmetic surgeon to get silicone injections into her chin which would help to swell up her entire face so that her chin would not be recognizable as before. Although she hoped this would solve her complexion, the surgery didn’t help at all! In fact, she had to get the injections on a regular basis. Even though it was evident that every time she got the injections her face was getting bigger and fatter, she became psychologically unstable and crazy that the injections became an addiction. Her mother became terrified of her appearance that she kicked her out of her house and even the doctor became frightened.

While people around her tried to help her recognize what the injections had done to her beautiful face, she saw herself looking more beautiful and radiant every time she got the injections. Soon, her doctor didn’t want to see her anymore but she desperately begged him to give her more injections. Getting annoyed, the doctor gave her silicone and a needle and told her to do it on her own. She gladly took it home and began injecting silicone into her face. But a few weeks later, she ran out of silicone and urgently searched her house to replace the silicon. With no luck in finding silicone, her last option was to use vegetable oil. Hoping it would have the same effect as the silicone; she injected the needle into her chin but noticed a rather drastic change in her face. The vegetable oil hardened in her face that dragged her whole face down. She soon became the center of humiliation, leading her to become suicidal.

While I was reading the violence chapter of The Beauty Myth, it reminded me of the story of Han Hegyon because she was the victim of a cosmetic surgery that went terribly wrong. When Naomi Wolf pointed out that ‘the myth is not only making women physically ill, but mentally ill’ (229) and ‘the beauty myth seems to exist outside civilization: There is as yet no such thing as a limit’ (236), I quickly related this to Han Hegyon. She became psychologically unstable with her addiction escalating and she sure didn’t have a limit to what she was doing! This reveals what women would do and what they would put themselves through just to get her beauty recognized in society. I mean it’s not like there’s a judge out on every street that judges your beauty. So why are women so obsessed with becoming this perfect woman, which in reality doesn’t exist because no human being is perfect?  

I definitely agree that ‘Cosmetic surgical techniques appear to be developed in irresponsible medical experiments, using desperate women as laboratory animals’ (236) because women like Han Hegyon and other women who have had a terrible outcome of cosmetic surgery are treated like experimental animals. I’m not saying that all cosmetic surgeons treat their patients as lab animals because there are millions of patients who have had a great success in their surgery. However, many doctors won’t tell their patients the adverse effects of surgery because all they care about it how much money flows into their bank account.

It’s unfortunate to see the evolution of beauty. Women are no longer considered beautiful unless their skinny, have flawless skin, have big boobs, have a straight nose, have long legs, etc. And it’s even more depressing to see cosmetic surgeons treating their patients as if they were lab animals. It’s a shame to see the media and advertisements encouraging women to get cosmetic surgery to become society’s ideal ‘perfect woman’. ‘The surgeons say that “the benefits far outweigh the risks,” which is a value judgement about the relative importance of their version of “beauty” to that of a woman’s life.’ (263). Woman can’t let surgeons or the media or advertisements convince them that their not beautiful just because they’re not the ‘perfect woman’. No one is perfect. And those ‘perfect woman’ in advertisements only exist in the cyber world because they’re not real. They’re made up.