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Self-proclaimed hipsters on campus would likely resist a comparison between their social group and the television show “Extreme Makeover.” The unsettling next generation in American body obsession, participants in “Extreme Makeover” are literally reconstructed through a battery of plastic surgeries. By the end of the program, the star of that week’s episode looks (and in many cases, behaves) like a completely different person.
What bearing does such a consumer-culture-influenced expression of the contemporary zeitgeist have on the tattooed neo-punks one sees in the quad? A similar belief that a simple physical alteration makes a person different from, or better than, what they once were.
Whether a soccer mom receives liposuction in order to appear beautiful or a local student gauges her ears in order to adhere to a “non-Western standard of beauty,” both are only modeling their bodies to look like something they saw in a magazine. Conformity is conformity.Does it really make a difference if you stole your look from the pages of the counter-culture rag Utne rather than from Glamour?
Ultimately, the cultural movement of body modification and its practices of tattooing, scarification and piercing are only a logical extension of our obsession with the surface. While those involved might entertain some feeling of condescension when they hear about the latest girl on campus who received a breast augmentation, they shouldn’t feel too confident. Her breasts and your nipple-ring are just two different sides of the same coin.
