Source: www.engageculture.com
April 22, 2004  

Cosmetic Salvation and the Big Reveal

Dear Concerned Citizen, 
Cindy, the latest contestant on Foxs The Swan (a bizarre concoction of Extreme Makeover, Starting Over, Are You Hot?, Queen for a Day, and The Miss American Pageant) is about to experience the "big reveal". She has spent three months undergoing an endobrow lift, mid-face lift, cheek fat removal, fat removal under eyes, lip augmentation, liposuction, chin refinement, fotofacial, laser hair removal, collagen, lasik surgery, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, liposuction on the inner thighs, a 1200 calories a day diet, and two hours a day in the gym. 

Just in case it all gets too much for Cindy there is also weekly therapy and life-coaching.

Cindy is a 32 year old mother of two sons and the wife of a loving husband. Each day during her three month ordeal she would weep uncontrollably over her homesickness. Her boys would cry on the phone for her to come home. 

But she would tell them she had to stay because The Swan program will make me a better person. Mommy has to do this.

Your heart goes out to Cindy. Fighting back tears, she tells how her classmates would call her "witch". Shes always hated her face and her body. Even now, to have sex with her husband, she turns the lights off and wears a t-shirt. I am just so embarrassed. I feel so ugly.

So Cindys confidence (vis--vis her body) has been overhauled by an eight-member team including two plastic surgeons, a fitness trainer, a dermatologist, a cosmetic dentist, and a life coach. Like Steve Austin in The Six Million Dollar Man before her, they have rebuilt her. They have made her better.

For the three months during her reconstruction all of the mirrors in her hotel room have been removed. She has not been allowed to see how she looks. This is to add suspense to the "big reveal" when she and 15 million viewers see the new and improved Cindy for the first time. 

It is reminiscent of the greatest reveal of all time. Thirsty from a long hunt, and bored from avoiding the ugly people and horny nymphs, Narcissus too had never seen his image. Cursed by Nemesis to love but not win over the creature who he loves, Narcissus approaches a magical pond with still, silver water capable of a perfectly mirrored reflection. When he sees himself he falls deeply in love with his image. But as he reaches out to touch his beloved, he disturbs the water and his beloved is gone. His love can never be satisfied. He dies from the heartbreak of unrequited love.

Cindy has so much more in her life than Narcissus. She is deeply loved by her kids and her husband. And she deeply loves them. But unlike Narcissus, Cindy does not love herself. She stands Ovids myth on its head. She loves others but not herself. Maybe if she is beautiful like Narcissus she will love herself like he does.

Tragically, in current American culture, the image you project is often more important than the life you live or the love you share. 

As the curtain parts, Cindy (like Narcissus before her) sees herself for the first time. Her appearance has dramatically changed. She breaks into tears and sobs, I dont recognize myself at all. I am beautiful!

The other pretty people attending the "big reveal" break into applause. They weep with her and embrace her. Unlike the nymph Echo who withered away after Narcissus spurned her advances because she was plain, Cindy now is acceptable.

From all appearances, Cindys self-esteem has been saved by this extreme makeover.

From Roman myth to American television, the desire to project a perfect image persists. But unlike ancient times, we now possess the technology to dramatically change our physical appearance. 

Other technological prowess extends beyond cosmetic surgery. It can effect more than just how we look. We are capable of creating elaborate and believable illusions of reality in many areas of our lives. These illusions seem to come to life. Not only can Cindy change from an ugly duckling to a beautiful swan, she can also fill her days with amusements and occupations that are almost entirely human made.

Many believe we no longer live in a God-made reality. Modern simulations create the impression that we have transcended everyday life. 

As Daniel Boorstin tells it in his book The Image;

We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the media.Demanding more than the world can give us, we require that something be fabricated to make up for the worlds deficiency. This is only one example of our demand for illusions.

In a wealthy and technologically advanced society such as ours we have plenty of spectacular illusions. Movies, computer games, modern amusement parks, the Internet, biotechnology, reality T.V., and nanotechnology all promise to turn each of us into a mixture of fantasy incarnate and commoditized product. We believe we no longer are bound by the limitations that once controlled human life.

 There is much good that can come from man-made realities. As Boorstin sees it;

It is not created by demagogues or crooks, by conspiracy or evil purpose. The efficient mass production of pseudo-events in all kinds of packages, in black and white, in Technicolor, in words, and in a thousand other forms, is the work of the whole machinery of our society. It is the daily product of men of good will.

The danger is when we forget the source of these goods; namely the God who made the world and commanded us to be responsible for it. This moral foundation acts as a powerful corrective to human excesses.

The same is true on the emotional level. If our lives become just our own invention, if all we do is fill our lives with our own fabricated illusions or human-made realities, then the world we live in will be a mere contrivance of a greater reality; the world God made.

Humans instrumentalize. God creates. 

A cautionary stance is best when considering human-made realities.

Again, Boorstin;

The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.

Cindys reconstructed beauty will one day fade. What can remain permanent in her life is the love she shares with her family if they remain devoted to each other. 

It is the same love that Narcissus and Echo desperately desired but never found.
 
 
