Fiction is Truer than Truth
April 17, 2008
Thanks to Dawn Roscoe, for sending me a link to this article in Newsweek. It talks about a new picture book by a Florida plastic surgeon designed for ‘Mommies’ to read to their kids to explain their upcoming surgeries. While there is merit in the idea of explaining to kids what is happening, this is a scary way to do it. To legitimize surgery to young children, is to create a new generation of surgery patients. But I fear that all of the T.V. shows and imagery about surgery in the media have already normalized cosmetic surgery so much that the current generation will have no qualms with altering their bodies.
There has been quite an uproar about the article online. I am happy to see that blogs have really picked up the mantle to disseminate this issue. The Newsweek article seems more like a fake paid advertisement than a piece of journalism.
I am not surprised by the book, if you spend any time online investigating surgery, nothing shocks you. What is most interesting to me, is how online articles and ad banners mix together to create new messages. While I would love to think that there are some bored web designers out there being subversive, I fear that the world is starting to lack irony. I have been playing around with web based appropriation for a while. Sometimes people do all your work for you.
Considering how cosmetic surgery is a life-threatening surgery (like any procedure with Anesthesia) could the above ad banner be any more accurate.
April 18, 2008 at 3:32 am
This is extremely interesting. When I see things like that book I always have to wonder if they are created sarcastically, as satire. I can’t imagine illustrating a book like that, non-ironically and being able to live with myself.
Actually, the whole Abortion Art thing that recently just popped up comes to mind.