BY EMILY CRAWFORD

In print | Published April 15, 2010 — Updated April 19, 2010 09:40

Barbie dolls. Plastic surgery. The Plastics from “Mean Girls.” Over the past 50 years, give or take, the metaphor of an idealized female body as “plastic” has become ingrained as part of society’s popular vocabulary, and the examples of this effect are endless. When women’s appearances are either literally too fake, through plastic surgery, or when they simply present themselves in a too perfect way, they get called fake and plastic, like dolls. I’ll admit that I am fully complicit in this system; many a time have I fallen too easily into the habit of calling someone who wears too much makeup a “doll-girl” or “doll-face.” But where do we draw the line? At what point does criticizing varying levels of altering one’s appearance, ranging from a flick of mascara to full-on invasive surgery, become misogynistic rather than productive?

A prime example of this cultural trend is Heidi Montag, of (debatable) reality show fame from the MTV show “The Hills,” which is currently airing its sixth and final season. I’m unclear about what Montag actually does, but for whatever reason she is still floating around in celebrity world, and has recently come out with a brand-spanking new, surgically enhanced body. Literally, I mean her whole body. In the way that some women might talk about have their nose or boobs “done,” Montag had everything done. My only real source of information about this has been through such reputable news sources as “Gawker” and their feminist offshoot blog “Jezebel,” but seeing one before-and-after picture really gives you all the information that you need. The girl no longer looks human, to put it bluntly. Somewhat understandably, the media buzz around her alleged 10 surgical procedures has been strong, especially since Montag has been particularly vocal about the benefits of plastic surgery. Unlike most stars, who tend to deny that they’ve had work done — particularly anti-aging processes such as Botox, which are ostensibly meant to preserve one’s youthful appearance, rather than alter it — she has actively announced and discussed the procedures she underwent and the insecurities that drove her to select them. To be fair, there’s no way that Montag could have denied her surgeries, given that she looks like a completely different person now.

Not surprisingly, Montag has received a lot of criticism for undergoing such invasive procedures at such a young age, particularly to such extremes. Her methods were also extreme. She underwent extensive liposuction, although she was already a thin girl, particularly a “back scooping” procedure usually requested by people who have recently received gastric bypass procedures and are left with excess skin. This could all be attributed to society’s unattainable and unhealthy beauty standards, except for the fact that I don’t think anyone was ever calling Heidi fat. Not to mention the fact that she also had fat injected in various other body parts, including her cheeks, of all places. No, Heidi Montag wasn’t trying to emulate skeletal fashion models or even large-breasted porn stars, although elements of both are present. Rather, her goal seems to have literally been to reshape her whole body into an inhuman form, closest to the original “plastic”: Barbie.

You know how you read all those reports about how if Barbie were a real person, she’d be eight feet tall and wouldn’t be able to stand upright? Well, Montag appears to be approaching such distortions. She reportedly is no longer able to go jogging because of her surgeries, a side effect for which many of the aforementioned blogs have mocked her. But at what point does such mockery become offensive, even anti-feminist? OK, Montag is clearly delusional about what is aesthetically pleasing, a practical use of money or advisable under any circumstances. She is setting a bad example, her priorities are terrifyingly skewed and she probably has some form of a psychological disorder at this point. But rather than laughable, isn’t all of that just saddening? After all, isn’t she really just a product of her environment? Sure, by normal standards Montag already fit the stereotypical definition of beauty: thin, big boobs, long blonde hair, etc. One might argue she wasn’t really conforming to a common ideal, but rather a delusional and disproportionate one. But really, all she has done is taken ideas that are already floating around in our culture and extrapolated on them. For instance, we all know the scene from “Mean Girls” in which Regina George and company all criticize their objectively attractive appearances in front of a mirror. Well, all Heidi has done is taken that idea and acted upon it. She grew up in a society, as we all have, in which we are increasingly told that even the most stereotypically “attractive” of us should still find fault with our bodies; that plastic surgery is ok, almost a “natural” course to take for those who can afford it; that the appropriate way of dealing with insecurities or an ugly-duckling syndrome is to undergo a makeover, rather than accept our flaws, real or imagined.

In short, what Montag has done is taken all these messages projected by society and literalized them. Sure, we can criticize her for being too susceptible to such things, but much of the mockery that the media has subjected her to goes past that. There has been a “dumb blonde,” “human Barbie,” plastic-y rhetoric surrounding her new body that has a decidedly gender-based tone to it. After all, she was subjected to society’s expectation of self-criticism and acceptance of elective surgery precisely because she is a woman in the entertainment industry. That’s not say that men don’t receive plastic surgery as well (anyone else remember the calf-implant craze of a few years ago?), but it remains a far less acceptable option for male-identifiers. After all, Montag’s husband Spencer Pratt may be an idiot who gets mocked all the time too, but not for his appearance and he has not felt compelled to undergo any surgery (yet).

A desire to defend Heidi Montag’s psychotic actions, which I would at the very least put in the same ballpark as severe self-mutilation, has been furthest from my mind in this column. But rather than criticism and mockery, I think pity is a more apropos reaction to her behavior. Or at the very least, we might strive for criticism on the basis of the disturbing social messages that she is enacting. After all, I played with Barbie dolls. We all did, with the exception of some individuals who probably had both very intelligent parents and very stunted childhoods. So before mocking a woman for playing into society’s superficial Barbie-doll stereotypes and ideals, I suggest that we consider what role we have taken in creating the conditions that allow the Heidi Montags of the world to exist.

Emily is a junior. You can reach her at ecrawfo1@swarthmore.edu.

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