Remember that horrible, horrible reality show called The Swan where two women who were considered "ugly" got a complete transformation that included extreme plastic surgery and one of them would get the honor of competing with other swans at a season finale pageant? One of the contestants was Lorrie Arias, she emerged from her transformation pretty much unrecognizable, it has now been 10 years since her transformation and what with all the recent hullabaloo over Renee Zellweger's change in appearance and whether or not she's had plastic surgery, Huffington Post decided to check in with Arias and see what it's really like to undergo such extreme plastic surgery and I can tell you it's NOT pretty.
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Even though Arias agreed to be on The Swan, she didn't realize how incredibly different she would end up looking. After all the physical changes not everyone was happy for Arias and there were a lot of negative reactions. The most difficult for her to deal with was her eldest son's reaction who didn't think she looked like herself anymore. Arias says, "He has told me that he felt afraid. That makes me feel guilty, because I realize that if the shoe were on the other foot, I would have freaked out too."
I understand how Arias' son felt because my mother has had plastic surgery and I HATE it. I can't stand it at all. The first time I saw her afterwards, I burst into tears. I still don't like it and I want to scream and shout and throw a tantrum to get my mother's "real" face back, but I have to shut my freakin' trap because it's her face.
What mothers don't realize is that children believe that their mother's face belongs to them as well and when a mother goes and changes the face that her child loves it freakin' sucks.
Here's what really bums me out in the end about cosmetic plastic surgery: if you are getting it in an effort to fix your self esteem issues, it doesn't work. It didn't work for Arias, she's in a terrible place now, she won't leave the house. She gained a bunch of weight and she'd happily undergo more plastic surgery if she could. It didn't work for my mother either. My mother continues to be obsessed with her appearance, there will always be something that could stand to be improved.
Arias says about the whole Zellweger situation, "The uproar every time something like that comes up in the news is personal jealousy. Most women would like to have something done, but maybe they're afraid or they just can't afford it."
I disagree. Sure, there are women who would like to have work done, but not all women and I really don't believe the negative gut reaction comes from a place of jealousy. I think for a public personality like Zellweger it comes because we got used to her face as it was and believe that it belongs to us in some way, so when it has been altered or we think it has been altered we can't help but react. Does it mean it's okay to be total jerks about it? No, because in the end it's not actually our face and it is cruel, hypocritical and judgmental to make such a big stink about it when we're all a part of the big machine that makes women feel so crappy about their appearances in the first place.
Also, I have to tell you in closing that I would give anything to see my mother's pre-plastic surgery face. I would give anything to see her age naturally. I miss her face more than you can possibly imagine and although this "new" face is technically hers, it will never be the face I fell in love with as a child.
Image via Thinkstock
