Ms. Ugly No More

I just recently finished a job order for a set of articles on cosmetic plastic surgery. In the end, the sight of Tara Reid’s monstrous stomach, Michael Jackson’s diminishing nose, Vivica Fox’s squiggly looking breast and Michael Douglass’ bleeding wounds were enough to send me sick and nauseated to my bed.

It was therefore a most unfortunate incident that I yet again, came across the topic on the local news. The Beverly Hills Cosmetic Surgery and Skin Institute apparently just concluded a contest for “Miss Ugly No More” with Lou Victorioso taking the top prize. The contest featured (you guessed it) retokadas or women who had undergone various cosmetic plastic surgery procedures and non-surgical aesthetic procedures.

Let’s get this straight. I personally feel conservatives have no business preaching to people who want to go under the knife. Nonetheless, we can all say what we want and I say that the “before” pictures of the top three showed more vibrant and youthful women then the stiff copies of western beauties that they had been molded into.

I also think that the contest’s title, theme and concept were a direct affront to my genetic heritage. Everything about it implies that flat noses, small breasts, chubbiness and “normal” skin tone all denote ugliness. This means that I, my husband, everyone I know and millions of average people in the Philippines have all been denied the blessings of nature and collectively been made the butt of a cruel cosmic joke.

At the very least, the concept of the contest is archaic. Anyone would be a fool to subscribe to western ideals of beauty in this day and age when flat nosed Asians and black Africans sashay through international contests with no need to apologize for their genes.

As a footnote, I remember reading quite distinctly that even western doctors do not claim that they will be able to produce perfection. People who choose to undergo cosmetic plastic surgery should have realistic expectations because you can only (luckily) be improved and not perfected. So those promotional ads and billboards for the contest that made the contestants look like they were kidnapped, experimented on by aliens and returned in super model bodies are all “male bovine manure”.