Love (island) in the time of plastic surgery

reality tv, beauty ideals and women’s “empowerment”

I, like many other twenty-somethings, found myself heavily invested in the most recent season of Love Island, USA. For my reality TV repulsed readers (my mom), Love Island is a dating show in which young singles couple up while competing in challenges. At the end, one winning couple, as decided by viewers, leaves with a cash prize. While I could take the time to critique reality TV, especially ones for “finding love,” my eyes stayed focused on one thing– filler. Lip and cheek filler to be exact.

For a while, I had a little to no opinion on plastic surgery. It felt like a personal decision, and far removed from my own life. But as I become inundated with media showcasing filler and botox, I’ve started to seek out conversation around the phenomenon. Plastic surgery has become extremely popular and extremely profitable. There’s a tension between the desire to respect women’s choices and to question the motive behind such choices. The most common critique I see regarding plastic surgery is that it looks bad or unattractive. These comments, though, center beauty standards and are simply mean spirited.

There is something deeper happening here: “it is not, of course, the desire to be beautiful that is wrong but the obligation to be– or to try”.¹ It’s not that I believe all women who get plastic surgery are insecure and rely on external validation. However, the popularity of filler and botox among young women has consequences that are seemingly being ignored.

JaNa (27), Serena (24)  and Leah (24)

It appears that at this moment in time, if you are a woman going on a reality TV show, you will indulge in some plastic surgery. The desired facial modification also seems to be universal: full lips, chiseled cheeks and thin noses. Filler not only creates a beauty effect dubbed “Instagram Face” or “iPhone Face,” these young women, typically ranging from age 21 to 28, ironically appear much older (or frozen in time).

Plastic surgery, like botox, used to be primarily marketed towards older women, to reverse signs of aging. Now, a much younger demographic is using it, even before wrinkles appear. Therefore, while watching a show like Love Island, my roommates and I were constantly gasping in shock when the contestants’ ages were revealed. A 21 year old looks much older. A 30 year old looks much younger. Collectively, the group ambiguously appears in their late twenties.

The aging effect on younger faces using botox and filler is a strange phenomenon considering botox’s intended goal: to appear younger and more attractive. Part of the issue is that filler, a mass injected into a targeted area, does not stay still in one’s face– it migrates. The effect of vials upon vials of plastic surgery fanning out across one’s face also has a name: “Pillow Face.” Similarly, botox temporarily paralyzes or weakens nerve signals that typically move and create lines in your face. When botox first became available, older women would use it to reverse wrinkles and signs of aging. However, as preventative botox becomes more popular among my age group, the act of creating such lines is blocked. Not only is the stereotypical frozen face reminiscent of an older woman seeking to look younger, but using botox for prevention promotes skipping the natural aging process entirely without knowing of its full consequences. The use of preventative botox has contributed to the maturing of young faces that use these products.

The Instagram Face phenomenon has also instilled insecurities in the people around me (and myself). Even before I began indulging in the occasional reality TV episode, distorted beauty standards found their way to my Instagram feed– trickled down from the queens of reality TV, the Kardashians. Despite not even following Kim Kardashian or Kylie Jenner, their trademark features² were on the faces of popular Instagram influencers trying to sell me flat tummy tea. I got the message easily: these features– a skinny nose, high cheekbones, full lips– were ideal. These are the kinds of women that are allowed to take up space in society. Of course, this is not new. Magazines and other media targeted towards young women and girls always held a certain beauty standard. But two major things changed for my generation: the desired facial features and the accessibility to these features.

In the past decade, the desired facial features have changed. When I was growing up, the ideal face was very skinny, with small features including the lips, nose, and even eyebrows (aptly deemed “heroin chic”). In the early 2000s, most supermodels were white, and these features are typically deemed Eurocentric³. Some of these Eurocentric features have stuck, such as the skinny nose, while full lips have more recently become desirable. The issue with changing beauty standards, of course, does not lie with women of color embracing their Afrocentric, Asian, or other non-White features, but rather how White women benefit from these features, especially after mocking them so recently. Kylie Jenner became a billionaire through her lip kits that helped users overline their lips. She soon admitted to having lip filler, which instead of being seen as fraudulent marketing, was celebrated as honest. Now, women with small lips know the real secret to full lips– thank God we could stop pretending that it was just makeup!

Users of plastic surgery are predominantly White women. When I scroll on Instagram or watch reality TV, I find myself wondering about the race of many women. When White women embrace full lips and fox eyes, their overall look begins to lean towards racially ambiguous⁴. I don’t think the crime in itself is the desire to change one’s appearance–as the beauty industry relies on us wanting something that we do not have– but is this how White supremacy has persisted in the beauty industry while it attempts to diversify? At the end of the day, there continues to be a bunch of White women dominating our feeds and our TV screens. Non-White features seem to be more marketable on a White face.

I think part of the reason that the conversation around plastic surgery has been limited is because choices feminism⁵, while slowly waning, continues to persist. This brand of feminism ultimately shields White women from criticism when engaging in problematic behavior, such as profiting from a historically Afrocentric feature like full lips. The cherry picking of non-White cultures and claiming it as our own boils down to the larger culture of colonization in America. It goes beyond Afrocentric features, like White women co opting the traditionally Latina “clean girl” aesthetic or causing Indian hair oils to sell out online.⁶ These aesthetics and forms of self care were disparaged in mainstream culture until White influencers promoted and profited from them.

White women influencers and reality TV personalities using plastic surgery to adopt non-White features (and profit from them) begs the question: where does bodily autonomy end and our societal responsibility to others begin? So often discussions around facial and body modification begin and end with the point that women have the right to change their appearances, regardless of why. Ignoring the intent behind these modifications, though, ignores the fact that our choices do not exist in a vacuum. If a woman changes her appearance through surgery to feel more confident, why do we value individual confidence (read: “empowerment”) over larger societal repercussions?

Even beyond racial implications, I’m nervous about the homogenization of women’s faces through surgical beauty trends. There is an increased access to and normalization of minimally invasive procedures such as filler and botox. It also seems to be a result of increasing globalization through social media. Ultimately, we risk losing the diversity among women’s faces to fit a certain standard in permanent and irreversible ways. This is what causes Instagram Face and iPhone Face– this face appears more modern and is ultimately more marketable for influences and reality TV personalities. We have yet to see the effects of this long term.

Liv (21) and Kaylor (22)

We seem to be living in an age where it has never been easier to access the “perfect” face. You can see this play out in the world of reality TV quite clearly. Previously, faces full of botox and filler were relegated to shows like The Real Housewives, following the lives of bored rich women. Now, even competition shows with real people, like Love Island or Love is Blind, have an air of surrealism (insert obvious “reality” TV joke here).

Celebrities confirming that they have had plastic surgery are applauded for their honesty and transparency– but then our thoughts transform from “I’m not good enough” to “I will be good enough if I get plastic surgery.” It becomes a never-ending aspiration towards perfection. I see this reflected in memes and video essays with the caption “You’re not ugly you’re just poor,” and showcasing a before and after photo of a popular celebrity.

I have moments where I think I might be happier if I had a skinnier nose, or bigger lips, or a flatter stomach. Ultimately I have to remember that this kind of beauty is just as fleeting as my natural face. We cannot slow down time. Current beauty standards are not timeless. Chasing the “perfect” face would be denying myself the chance to age– the definition of being human. To depend solely on my external appearance would be to rely on ever changing beauty standards, still easily threatened by the next trend or the prettier girl next to me on the subway. Ultimately, plastic surgery does not liberate us from beauty standards. And it cannot protect us from the patriarchal idea that women are only as valuable as our appearance.

1.  Susan Sontag (1975), A Woman's Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source? https://archive.vogue.com/article/1975/04/01/a-womans-beauty-put-down-or-power-source

2. Notably, these features, such as Kylie’s full lips or Kim’s cheekbones, were also achieved through plastic surgery.

3.  Think of a Marie Antoinette portrait when I use this term.

4. I’m not going to touch on fake tanning in this article, but this is an important aspect of this racially ambiguous look as well

5.  The brand of feminism that promotes women’s empowerment to choice whatever is right for her but has been co opted by the mainstream media to depoliticize its meaning.

6. While using the oil incorrectly for their hair type, I’ve been told.