The Pessimist's Guide to Modern Living - Part 3: Nip/Tuck/My Face Is F**ked

I would like to direct your attention, if I may, towards a little ‘fad’ human beings like to follow: it is known colloquially as ‘plastic surgery’, and there’s a very good reason for the word ‘plastic’ to be included within that abhorrent title. Many jokes have circulated over the past few years upon the state of the face of one of humanity’s greatest showmen: Michael Jackson. Jokes suggesting he would have a slower rate of decay after death; jokes insinuating that his body contained more plastic than a Lego store; jokes suggesting that so little remained of his nose that was organic that it was actually fully-detachable. While I personally am not an individual who likes to support the circulation of such comments, I must admit that the message behind them is undoubtedly sinister: Michael Jackson had so much plastic surgery in his life in a futile attempt to make himself seem younger and younger as he would naturally have grown older and older that by the end of his life he was less realistic than a Liberal Democrat’s promise.

With his ever-deforming face constantly on the screens of the globe’s multitudinous news networks, one would probably expect a significant decrease in the number of people actually going in for this kind of nip/tuck treatment. Who, after all, would want to willingly place themselves under the knife just to prevent the natural process occurring that is aging? Yet, amazing as it is, the popularity of transforming yourself into a walking clothes-store mannequin has not gone away: in fact, I would even dare to suggest that it is more popular than ever before. In 2011, for the first time ever, I actually saw an advert frequently playing on television showing individuals who had supposedly had such treatment, and were far, far happier for it (oh, their lives must have been such Hell before, when they wore B-cups rather than Cs, or when their faces actually were actually capable of showing emotion); additionally, we seem to frequently be shown programmes (such as the horrendous human factory that is Ten Years Younger) showing how people unsatisfied with their appearance can benefit immensely from a makeover involving the heavy use of scalpels, Botox injections and acid peels. Furthermore, as if that weren’t enough, we are unremittingly presented with walking machines such as a certain ginger dragon who’s name rhymes with ‘Ban Gobinson’ and five-hundred-year-old singers without a line upon their smooth baby’s arsehole faces (such as one whose name sounds suspiciously like ‘Harry Bamilowe’).

‘Oh no, I haven’t had any plastic surgery. I moisturise constantly – that’s my secret. Now, excuse me while I eat this mountain of cream. Well, it normally would be bad for me, yes, but don’t worry, I’ll just hoover out my gut later.’

A truly terrible thought.

Yet we continue to believe that this is somehow the natural way for humanity to progress. Progress, however, at least in physical form, is something we are frequently told to avoid by that great medium that is science fiction television. Not being a great advocate of the genre, I am not perhaps the most well-versed person to compare this kind of medical deageification to, say, androids. But I shall anyway. I can, of course, talk about the one science fiction show I do like – Doctor Who – and what I feel to be its most disturbing villains – the Cybermen.

I am not talking about the Cybermen of the new series as aired on BBC One from 2005 to the present day. These Cybermen are gruesome, but not disturbing. What are truly disturbing, however, are the original forms of these creatures, as debuted in 1966. These Cybermen, while partially robotic, still possessed working human hands and organic faces, having decided originally to achieve immortality by replacing decaying body parts with cybernetic alternatives but, in true sci-fi style, having got a bit carried away and ultimately replacing their brains with emotion-inhibiting computer units. It’s all very complex. The point is, however, their backstory sounds very similar to what we, as a race, are trying to create – a kind of immortality, an immunity from the ravages of time, by replacing our decaying bodies with new, high-tech parts. How far away is that from the stuff of nightmares I will take the liberty of picturing below?

Of course, I am not one to suggest that all cosmetic surgery is a bad thing. When there is something severely wrong with someone, or they are truly distressed by a part of their bodies, then by all means do what you can to feel happy once again. But the issue I find with the world today is how we are constantly told what is attractive, as though it were a truly black and white subject, and how we are frequently forced to believe that the world demands that we produce perfection out of our naturally-flawed bodies. We should, instead, be taught to be happy with what we’ve got. It is only because we are told otherwise that we see ourselves as anything other than beautiful, and this is why so many of us, so sadly, strive to change our appearance through any means necessary.

To further illustrate this point, I would like to suggest a potential scenario featuring a fictional character of mine. I think I will call him Shaun – Shaun Beale. Dear Shaun spent much of his youth strutting about along seafronts in testicle-constricting Speedos, his bronzed, oiled muscles rippling as he walked, basking in the sunlight. Everyone turned to look at him. He was, truly, God’s gift to women.

Then, one day, something terrible happened: Shaun Beale ran out of anti-wrinkle pore-cleansing flesh-moisturising sun-protecting thermally-hydrogenated whipped cream, and suddenly the seven signs of aging began to literally spring up all over his body like daffodils in springtime. He knew he needed help, and he needed it fast. So he went under the knife. After a lengthy procedure, and several days with eyes as black as coal and severe bruising all over his once Adonis-like features, the three wrinkles atop his brow were no more, the laughter-lines at the corners of his mouth no longer laughed, and his pectorals were as firm as not-quite-ripe gooseberries.

Of course, no-one but Shaun had noticed his imperfections. His brow had once given him expression – now he was less expressive than an Ann Summers model; his laughter-lines had made him seem happy, but if he was that worried about them what time could he ever have had for laughter?; no-one had seen his saggy moobs but he.

And why had he put himself through all this trouble and strife just to achieve an idealistic image of perfection unique only to the demons within his own psyche? The media had driven its ideals home, naturally.

Of course, the media is not entirely to blame by any means. Society, too, causes us to suffer.

‘Let’s laugh at fat people.’

‘You have a spot today – you should stay indoors.’

‘Your nose is too big to be attractive to anyone with a set of eyes.’

‘How thin are your lips?! Puff them up for us, please. What the human race needs is more people who resemble those most beautiful of fish, the peacock grouper.’

‘Wait, your breasts don’t get in the way of you opening cupboard doors? Get some silicon inside you, woman!’

‘Wait, your breasts do get in the way of you opening cupboard doors? We’ll soon have those off with a quick slice, young man!’

Hopefully you can see what I’ve been striving at here, and you haven’t just found a statement you feel relates to you and run off to your local surgery in floods of tears. Society constantly insults us, provides back-handed compliments and drives us to hate ourselves in ways we shouldn’t. Believe it or not, however, there is more to life than how you look. After having a friend tell me while drunk the other night that I looked ‘very handsome, but more so in the moonlight’, I can understand, naturally, the positive effects of compliments, but our emotional construction is far more complex than simply skin-deep issues.

‘I love you bubba.’ – Alex White.

‘When Will’s sad, I feel sad: a little part inside me dies.’ – Kat Darlington.

‘If I was Will, I’d be very self-proud.’ – Harriet Baker.

‘I f**king love you man. I think you’re great.’ – Simon Birkmyre.

‘I think with you, people mistake “confidence” for “arrogance”’…

Okay, maybe not that one… erm…

‘You have an infinite knowledge of music.’ – Shaun Beale.

Friends, of course. The people who lift you up when you’re down; the people who love you despite the fact that you killed their hamster during a horrendous hoover-related accident; the ones who compliment you even when they know you’re being an arse. I am very privileged to be able to think of five compliments only drawing upon quotes from my fellow Pessimist Chroniclers, but there are hundreds more for me to choose from. It is even more heart-warming when I think that there are really only two people in this world whom you need to love you.

One of them is a friend. Just one friend. Someone to help you crawl through life's sewage, and to wash you off when you come out the other side.

The other person is yourself.

The human race is full of imperfections. It’s what makes us human. Yes, it is true, people will still be fickle. We will still be judged on our physical appearance. That girl/boy you have your eye on will continue to ignore you, the truly nice, kind, gentle boy/girl who will treat them right, opting instead to favour cads who are after nothing but enjoyment from their most aesthetically-pleasing characteristics, leaving you by the wayside. But one day, eyes will be opened. You and the ideal partner will find each other, and neither of you will care for such trivial, skin-deep factors. You will be able to become two ugly people sticking together in an ugly way with ugly glue. I am using the word ‘ugly’ here in a new way, of course. It wouldn’t matter if, in your little partnership, you were both absolute gargoyles, or one was better-looking than the other, or you were both as physically beautiful as Achilles: you can still be ‘ugly’ to society when you don’t endeavour to conform to our most rigid social binaries (such as sporty/nerdy, clever/stupid, beautiful/repulsive). Perhaps you will see each others’ wrinkles and blemishes, and overlook them just as you should, despite what our media-saturated society is screaming at you. One day there will be a straight passage through romance in this world of such demanding physical obsession for the man who doesn’t like sport, who doesn’t see women as mere objects for pleasure, who reads poetry, who understands philosophy (at least as far as it is humanly possible to truly understand the quasi-intellectual ramblings of men who think for a living and are invariably called ‘Jean’), and who would treat his partner like a princess – no, like a queen (as far as two British citizens in the current economic climate can live as royalty).

And maybe neither of you will have to change the shape of your nose during your journey.

‘Humans’ – ‘Homo Sapiens’, meaning literally ‘Wise Men’.

If we’re so wise, then let’s stop this obsession with body image. Life is for living, after all, and certainly not for existing under the shadow of worry about those wrinkles at the corner of your mouth. But, to be honest, if you are a person obsessed with how you appear to others, then let me ask you this: have you ever considered that it may just be you worrying, while nobody else cares how you’re aging? From the second you are born you start to die, and every change on our long and somewhat arduous (yet absolutely brilliant) journey occurs so gradually and at such a rate that none of your friends even notice.

Go under the knife, however, and they will see a difference.

Most of them will feel sorry for you.

Some of them will laugh at you behind your back.

A handful of them will see an improvement.

William D. Green

Cybermen image courtesy of www.comicvine.com - This image may not be situated in the same location in the post if this page is viewed from a mobile application, but this should not adversely affect your reading experience.

The image is taken from the season 4 Doctor Who story 'The Tenth Planet', originally aired between 8th and 29th October 1966 on BBC One.