Beauty Standards - Hollywood

Yeah I had the exact same thought that whole movie too!

My mom started getting into plastic surgery in my teens and is still into it today in my late 20's. Seeing the healing process and seeing and listening to her recount how painful the procedures were are enough to turn me away from it forever. I remember feeling her boob job and thinking "oh wow, alien boobs!" years ago. For her facelift she was awake the whole procedure and had her wrists strapped down to a chair so she couldn't interfere with the plastic surgeon's work by reacting to the pain of having her face sliced open. She got an eyelid procedure nearly a year ago and still suffers pain in her eyes that she's been on multiple medications for.

I love her to death as she is and I hate seeing her in pain. I see her old pictures of her natural face with her original nose and my brain immediately registers that as "mom"!

Personally I think plastic surgery breaks the hippocratic oath (disregarding facial reconstructive surgery and other necessary things of course) and I won't be doing any on myself. But I also don't look down on women or fault them for doing the procedures.

I don’t have a problem with it you are legitimately doing it for yourself. I lost a lot weight and originally my face was really gaunt. When I smiled, there were 5 creases on each cheek. I hated looking like that and had fillers. I never regretted it. (Also, this is not a commercial for fillers here, but they told me that the fillers stimulate collagen growth and that turned out to be true. I haven't had to have them again and it has been years, which is good because I didn't plan to make it a habit.)

Choice feminism just reinforces the patriarchy. Our choices are not made in a vacuum, and every time you choose the male gaze, other women are pressured into it. Outside of medical necessity or the other example someone commented here, I say this is a hard no.

More power to whoever is brave enough. I briefly considered a tummy tuck. One youtube video on how it was done completely made me nope out. Also... some results are just plain bad. The best surgery is the one nobody can tell you had some, and most plastic surgery is very obvious.

To me, Hollywood has always been unapologetically cutthroat when it comes to beauty standards. Hollywood pressures women to look like 20 somethings even when they are in their 40s. If they wants to stay relevant, actresses are pressured to keep fit, young and pleasant.

But male actors have procedures done as well, only the 50 year old men aren't pressured to look 20 anymore, maybe this is the gap between Bullock and Pitt in your example.

We can say that the movie industry encourages and funnel customers to the plastic surgery industry/ beauty industry which funnels material for the fashion industry which thrives on the backs of marginalized groups and women from countries that export labour very cheaply (think China, Taiwan, Bangladesh, India and many other).

It's a noxious symbiosis between industries. One hand washed the other and so on, the rich fat men have everything to win, women and girls, everything to lose.

And women and girls of color, from marginalized groups, immigrants, refugees, victims of financial abuse and trafficking are those that suffer directly.

Also notice that most beauty standards and trends target MOSTLY teen girls and young women? The rest of the age groups are left to try and fit into one of the two categories which is impossible when you're 30.

Let's be honest, we don't have the equivalent of GQ for women. We have Vogue, instead. or Elle or similar... and come on... they are very teenage-y, still only with more money.

It all starts with pre-teen Vogue material. Do you think teens read teen Vogue? No. 7 and 10 yo read teen Vogue and other publications that pick apart the female body to be examined and criticized: hips, thighs, face, boobs, hands, nails, hair. When I was a teen, I evolved to reading publications that targeted adults, the most libfemmy of their kind, because those were the ones allowed to exist among serious (aka targeting men) mass publications, next to Playboy, GQ, Men's health.

I mean, every summer there's a new body trend. I still remember when some pretty damnable trends appeared, like thigh gap, the toblerone or the bikini bridge (which was by the way a trend started by 4chan) - all trends that trigger ED victims and not only. As women, we are always targeted and pushed to develop a dysfunctional relationship with our bodies - think 2015 libfemmy Cosmo & Your Tango posts.

From this malaise, there are money to be made.

Men profit off the fact that girls and young women are socialized to grow up hating their bodies. They also capitalize on the fact that women were socialized to be people pleasers, agreeable and "nice". Think girls and young women that went through the worst, the most predatory modelling agencies (this was before Jenner & Hadid hit the market), who were ready to eat paper tissues, work to the bone and be passed like prostitutes in order to keep their contracts.

So despite the fact that the beauty industry is hypocritical for touching on all these other industries that create collateral victims all over the world, we cannot deny the allure of "beauty".

I do not think a woman cheats herself or is inauthentic to herself if she has procedures done.

I do feel a woman is cheated by society as a whole, instead.

We cannot stop age. As you pointed out, it looks unnatural with all those procedures. Money can get women many things and surely they can get them a fashionable face and a crowd to stan for them (like Bella Hadid & K Jenner). This creates a distortion in our own views on "beauty". All around us we see these "perfect" women and since we're social creatures, we could try going through grueling procedures to obtain that acceptance (like in South Korea) and to always look a certain way (mostly younger). It is very difficult to keep being a square in a sea of circles (see "the IG face").

This thing of “women should do what their want to their bodies, it’s their choice” is true to a certain level. We should NEVER forget that humans don’t make choices on a vacuum: we are conditioned to make choices depending on what we are exposed to. That being said, having plastic surgeries that are not really necessary (and I don’t mean when you have a nose that makes it difficult to breath, an implant because of a breast cancer, a face adjustment because you had an accident, skins removal or fillers after loosing lots of weight etc) is just patriarchy SCREAMING. Having boob jobs just because you want them BIGGER is absolutely not acceptable in a feminist point of view. Radical feminist are against those types of surgeries and they consider this self mutilation. Like we always say… women are not allowed to age in peace. The cosmetic industry is always doing something to make us “look younger” because in a patriarchy old women have no value. Women who do plastic surgery, that are not related to the examples I cited above, are contributing to patriarchy. We need to be the ones to say NO. NO, I don’t want bigger boops to look fuckable for men; I don’t to look younger because I’m afraid I won’t be sexy to men anymore; I don’t want to have nose job because I don’t have an Angelina Jolie nose; I’m just different and this is how I am.

I'm not going to tell another woman what to do with her body, but I can't support plastic surgery/botox. As others have said, choices don't occur in a vacuum. The risks far outweigh the 'benefits', and as far as I'm aware fillers/botox tend to age you faster. A friend of mine has been in the modelling industry for years, tried botox once, and fervently warns against it for that very reason. In the long run, it can make your 'problem' worse. A billion dollar industry almost entirely based on making women hate themselves is not an industry I can support(that argument can of course be made for the make-up and fitness industries, but neither of those have anywhere near the risk that plastic surgery does). Not that aging is a problem. Graceful as she goes.

Getting plastic surgery isn't solving the actual issue. "Fixing" your big nose or flat chest isn't going to make you love yourself nor make any man treat you better. For crying out loud men mock women who have gotten plastic surgery calling them fake/plastic. You're better off spending money on a therapist that will help fix the actual problem than changing your appearance.

I refuse to buy anything marketed as 'anti-aging' because this garbage isn't marketed to men. I refuse to give my money to corporations run by men who tell women they're hideous for aging. Fuck that.

As for plastic surgery? I refuse to look like the generic 'baby cheetah' Instagram face we've all come to know. Disgusting. I'll happily die alone before I succumb to this crap

I think the FDS stance is that cosmetic procedures are not feminist. Taking part in cosmetic procedures promotes unrealistic beauty standards and social pressures to conform to them.

I used to live in a beauty-focused country. The women around me clearly invested a lot in being beautiful. I'd frequently get unsolicited comments on my physical appearance and sometimes get unsolicited advice to get plastic surgery. I probably would've had work done if I stayed because plastic surgery was common and accepted as an investment in yourself and your career.

I don't look down on women who spend a ton of time, money, and efforts on physical appearance, but I don't pretend it is empowering. It isn't a free choice. It's ridiculous to think a woman undergoes painful, medically unnecessary, and expensive surgery just for herself. Or pays a stranger to rip out all of her pubic hair just for herself. Or does any painful, expensive, time-consuming beauty practices just for herself. I don't want to criticize these women because trying to be beautiful may benefit them in the workplace, relationships, etc.

On the other hand, I don't embrace the idea of ageing is beautiful or everyone is beautiful. Words have meaning, and everybody can't be beautiful. What would be better would be if it was really okay to not be beautiful. I wish we could live in a society where we don't get disadvantaged by not being beautiful. Instead of saying we're all beautiful, I'd love if we could care less about being beautiful. I wish less of our mental energies were focused on being beautiful.

I oppose the unethical behavior that plastic surgeons exhibit. Some of them simply keep pocketing cash from individuals who suffer from severe body dysmorphia. It's unethical for them to keep doing work on people like Oli London, Jessica Alves, and Jocelyn Wildenstein. In addition to that, some of the procedures they're providing clients are insane. Such as doing multiple procedures in one sitting. Or increasing women's breast size to unethical proportions and not taking into consideration how their skin will heal or how it will impact their health. I don't know how they get away with it. They need to humanize their clients more.

FDS is against anything that is "high risk", e.g. BBLs. If you want to dab on a little mascara, sure go for it. But informed research should come first and risky surgeries are to be avoided. If a woman wants 'something done', it should be 100% for her and not because of pressure from others, especially a man.

LOL at remembering an ex-boyfriend of mine who offered to pay for me to get implants. I left his ass and me and my small boobs are perfectly happy without him.

Imo it is shameful to be putting so much resources into these surgeries because our resources being finite, its not just "everyone for themself do what makes you happy gurl", medical resources should be used to save lives. There are many people in this world too poor to deserve life saving treatment while some of us are rich enough to do what we want with our own body gurl! It's sick and we should not support the surgeons who choose to specialize in this knowing they can make bank. The point of medicine should be saving lives and making that moral choice is important because uou all know voting changes nothing. Vote with your dollar. ENOUGH of consumerism and telling us all we can do what we want and trash the world with our dollar and its noones business.

My opinion may change over time, but I’d personally never get work done. Ideally, I want to continue a healthy lifestyle so that I can age as gracefully as I can, and whoever dislikes my ageing appearance needs to f*cking leave. I love my face/body the way it is and will do my best to love it as I age. I also wouldn’t dare give any man any ideas that I might dislike my body, even if I have insecurities. When I was 18, I used to have friends already talking about botox and plastic surgery, voicing their fears of ageing past 25. One drunkenly told me she got her lips done, but persisted to lie about it (saying they were completely natural) to everyone who was jealous of her perfectly model-esque lips. I didn’t like hearing that and since then, I just wanted to avoid the thought of plastic surgery completely…

I’m not here to criticize someone for getting cosmetic procedures done. I had a friend in college who got double eyelid surgery, and all her asian (and one indian guy, for some reason) shit-talked her behind her back. They said it looked ugly, that she was ashamed of having asian features, etc. My viewpoint was that it’s her face, and she can do what she wants. Same with fillers, or a woman getting a tummy tuck after having kids. If it makes you feel more confident, go for it. But i also hate that it’s an expectation in some industries. Like the minute you start aging, you’re expected to do something about that. And it makes me sad to see beautiful you g women pay to have their faces re-shaped just because what they have doesn’t fit the current trend. Like we can’t see beauty in diversity. I guess I feel the same way about it as I do makeup. I’m not going to shame women for either wearing makeup or not wearing it.

maybe it's misogyny but if I had the $ to get botox i would.