I hope people have been watching Channel 4’s documentary, Beauty and the Beast. This show follows beauty addicts and pairs them up one at a time with someone who has a facial disfigurement. They spend one week living as a beauty addict and one living as someone with a facial disfigurement.
It’s been a fascinating show, and I watched this series and the previous series. I thought it was very well done and raised some very serious issues that need addressing.
It is impossible to judge someone if you have not walked a mile in their shoes. However, it is literally impossible to imagine how it must be to live as someone with a facial disfigurement. There will be stares, points, giggles and that sort of thing- because people can be heartless, and we all know they can.
It is not fair to say that you have not done it yourself. However, I stopped to think after watching this show about just how cruel people can be. If someone has a shocker of a haircut- you can always change this. If someone is wearing a voluminous orange sun-dress that makes them look like a walking traffic cone, they can change this. However, if you have an exceptionally large nose, a lazy eye, crooked teeth or a double chin, you can’t change this. It is simply what nature gave you.
Plastic surgery is a dangerous path to tread down- and we all know this. I have a horrifically addictive personality and I know if I had even one tiny procedure done I’d be in love with the idea and would end up looking like a walking Barbie doll. Plastic surgery can go horrifically wrong- one young lady on this show had two breast augmentations, as unfortunately the first went wrong. She told the camera matter-of-factly and bluntly that this left her with absolutely no sensation in her breasts, and said that it didn’t matter because they looked nice. There have been endless shows dedicated to the horror that some people are left with on their bodies- implants rejecting, scars not healing correctly or hopelessly non-qualified surgeons hacking your face to pieces and leaving you half paralysed and looking like HermanMunster. One lady I remember in particular had a breast augmentation but the surgeon had done this incorrectly and had left her implants sitting too high on her chest whilst her breast tissue hung beneath them. She was crying as she told the camera “There was nothing wrong with my breasts before I did this.”
Despite the gruesome warnings we are left with, if someone offered me a shed load of cash to have plastic surgery with, I would do it. I would go ahead with the smug idea “Well, it won’t happen to me”. I think a lot of people would. We all have things about our bodies we dislike, or in some cases even hate and if someone offers us a magic solution to dash them all away and leave us “perfect” it must be very hard to say no.
I for one would love to have laser eye surgery. That’s top of my list. I am, to all intents and purposes, completely blind without my glasses. It is a massive pain in the behind. Little things- like the fact I can’t see anything when I am in the shower, I can’t see anything when I am doing my make-up, walking in the rain is almost impossible and whenever I go to the toilet in the middle of the night, I take my life into my hands. Before I needed to wear glasses, I did these things without really considering them. I don’t mind wearing glasses- in fact I have literally just done my make up and I now need to wash my glasses as I attempted to slap a bucket of foundation on my face without taking them off. I just forget they’re there because they are constantly on my face. Laser surgery is both expensive and risky (I cannot wear contacts as I am allergic to the solution they come in and it feels like someone has poured lime juice into my eyes) – I wouldn’t do it without proper research and consideration. I just can’t afford it, that’s the main reason I can’t have it done.
The next would be my teeth. My goodness, do I hate my teeth. A school friend described them “a set only a horse would envy” and she’s not wrong. They are massive, with big pointy incisors, so people often ask me “Did you have them filed like that?” No, of course I didn’t, what am I, insane? They’re just huge and pointy like a wolf. I have a lot of teeth and a very small jaw so they have come in at mad angles. I am also, and have been since birth (as far as I know) a thumb sucker meaning I have a giant overbite. My friend, considering my face whilst drunk out of her mind said “God, Sarah, do you know, you can even see it when your mouth is closed, it’s that bad.” Thanks. Thanks very much.
Face in general? Well, like the moon. Big and white and round. Very chubby face, always have been, always will be. Big double chin, big cheeks, just generally jowly, like a banker who eats too much beef Wellington. Big forehead. Very small eyes, like a pig. Tiny mouth and big nose. What a winning combination!
The rest of it? Don’t even get me started. One man politely observed that I “wobble like a blancmange when I walk”. Thank you, kind stranger. He is also not wrong. I am a big girl, everywhere. I’ll say this for my body at least- I am fat everywhere and not like those poor women you see who have a huge belly and little limbs, so they look like someone has pushed toothpicks into an apple. Big shoulders, like a swimmer, big arms, big chest (my face is up here, thank you) big tummy, big hips, big thighs, and then because nature is evil, the tiniest, skinniest little ankles you’ve ever seen in your life and the tiniest little feet. Thanks, thanks a lot.
You see? I am just as bad as the rest of them! I spend a fortune of body scrubs, cellulite lotion, razors, moisturisers, bronzer, mascara, blusher and heaven knows what else, just before I even go out the door it takes a good half hour to get ready. There are eyebrows to be filled in, nose to be shaded so it looks thinner, cheekbones to be painted on, and all of that jazz. I do my make up in a careful way because my right eye is lazy and when I look straight at you, it looks like one eye it higher than the other. If I do ever have to run out without the war-paint on, I feel nervous and uncomfortable all day. If I ever have something important, like a job interview, my make up can take a full hour. It makes me feel ready.
Despite all of these things, is my body functional? Yes. I can breathe, go to the toilet, run, dance, lay down and walk about with no pain or problems. I’ve never had to have painful surgery, over and over again, to correct something I was born with. I’ve never been called names because of something I can’t help (being called fat doesn’t count, I can help that, try putting down the fork) and I’ve never been an outcast in a sea of people because of the way I look. I expected to watch this show and be firmly on the side of those with a facial disfigurement, eschewing beauty and saying that it’s all on the inside. But I didn’t, at all. I understood where the beauty addicts where coming from. They didn’t feel good enough, and their way of facing the world was behind a shipping container of make up with their breasts under their chin. Most of them had a reason for their addiction- they hated themselves, and felt as if the whole world was wagging a stern finger and telling them they weren’t good enough. It seems to show was good for them- it made them see things from a different point of view, and realise that actually, we come in such a huge variety of shapes, sizes, colours, heights, weights and looks, that all of this junk on the outside won’t make you happy. It doesn’t either- believe me. You can wear as much eyeliner as you want sweetheart, if you’re ugly on the inside, it shows on the outside.
I thought this show was extremely well done and really made me think. It’s time to be a little more grateful for what I do have, rather than mourning what I don’t have. I am still going to wear make up, but not so much. I am still going to pull my face back and wonder what I’d look like with a facelift, but I am never going to have surgery. It just isn’t worth it.
