Marked Up
The young Korean girl stares blankly into the camera, directly at the viewer. The bare walls, white sheets and her pearly skin are harshly contrasted by the black lines scribbled across her body. “Not here.” marks her thighs, a way to tell the girl at least this part of her body is fine. There are circles around her breasts and hips, dotted lines on her waist, and triangles drawn on her cheeks and jaw. Each line is a temporary place holder for the incision others believe a scalpel should be placed. However, despite the plethora of writing across her body, the eyes of the viewer are drawn almost immediately to the blocked letters that spell out “Anywhere” across her stomach. It’s hard to make out the words of encouragement that call her beautiful, they’re faded or written in chicken scratch. The more I stare at her, the more her empty smile radiates a subtle sadness. A sign in the photograph next to her says, “I want to be perfect. Draw on me, where should I get plastic surgery?”
At a first glance, it is clear that the photographer posed the young model in front of the camera. The first eye-catching part of this photograph is the lighting and back drop of the room which are both white and bright. This makes the dotted lines, marks and some words on the model’s body stand out in the photo. The marks and words that seemed to be bolded not only by the lighting but also by the way they were written are the marks criticizing the model’s body. On the other hand, the black marks that seem to provide the model words of encouragement and compliments are faded and hard to see due to the lighting and how the marks are written. Since this photograph is posed, it could be assumed that the way the room was lighted to make particular marks stand out was intentional. Perhaps the photographer was trying to relay the message that critical remarks take precedence over the compliments. Even, the word “Anywhere” (used to imply that the model should have plastic surgery anywhere on her body) is bolder, bigger and above the word “Bellisima” which in Italian means beautiful. The photographer may have been trying to emphasize how people self-conscious of their body view themselves not with the lifting words others may say, but the critical ones bringing them down.
Plastic surgeries have been increasing in commonality in the past few years (American Society of Plastic Surgeons). Patricia Marx from the New Yorker states that Korea is actually considered the “plastic surgery capital of the world” because of its rank as the highest rate of plastic surgery per capita. This particular photograph is from a collection of candid photos that show the aftermath of plastic surgery on Korean women by Ji Yeo, a Korean photographer currently residing in the United States. Ji Yeo’s photography collection isn’t the beautiful before and after photos most people see in magazines or advertisements that show women posing with their new flat stomachs or enlarged eyes framed with colorful eyeshadow. These photos contain women who are covered from head to toe with bandages, their faces swollen and their eyes surrounded by stitches and scattered bruises. They stand alone in dark rooms that seem isolated from the rest of the world. They more closely resemble war-torn soldiers than people who’ve just undergone a medical procedure. Most of Ji Yeo’s collection shows the results of putting a person’s body through an intense transformation. They are a reflection of what Korean women in particular put their body through to achieve their culture’s idea of perfection, perhaps showing the physical manifestation of the cruelty behind their society’s stringent emphasis on beauty standards. However, the photograph being examined in this essay is of a posed model who is not of a post-op surgery but rather a result of a social experiment Ji Yeo does. In order to capture this photograph, Ji Yeo got a model to stand and wear a sign that asks pedestrians to indicate where the model should get plastic surgery. After the experiment, the photographer took a photo of her covered in marks in the white room to make a commentary and show a commentary on beauty standards.
This photograph is particularly unique because of how it is a reflection of not a person’s individual beauty standards but what society’s beauty standards may be. While most of her photographs are of Korean women in Korea, this is the first photograph of a Korean woman in Brooklyn, one of the boroughs of probably the most diverse city in the entire world (Brown). Across the body of the model are words in not only English but in Italian as well. Despite only two languages showing up on the model’s body, according to infoplease, English is the third most commonly spoken language in the world. This and the fact that an Italian word was also written across the body could mean that the people writing these statements and drawing on the models body could be from almost any background indicating the corrections on the model’s body are influenced by a slew of cultures.
In Ji Yeo’s other photographs, her models subtly reflect the beauty standards of Korean culture by showing the results of surgeries that produce double-lidded big round eyes, narrow jaws, and a certain waist to hip ratio. Just based on my own experiences growing up, I too am aware of the particular areas most Korean people aim to change. Korean drama actors and actresses, Korean pop stars, and even some in my own family seem to believe that Korean beauty is defined with those particular attributes. Most of the areas in which people indicated surgery should be done on the model in the photograph being examined are in areas that the Korean women in Ji Yeo’s other photographs seemed to have altered with plastic surgery. For instance, the model’s waists are dotted with a line indicating that it should be made smaller. The model’s jaw is also marked to perhaps make that part of her face narrower. Ji Yeo could be showing that Korean beauty standards are very similar to other cultures since the words and comments on the model’s body were received from people in a diverse American place. Or perhaps Ji Yeo is trying to show how people from a plethora of cultures view Asian women with the same standard these women have for themselves. She may be showing that Americans have a stereotype for how a “perfect” Asian woman should look. Perhaps Ji Yeo is trying to show that by getting these surgeries done, Korean women are influenced by what other cultures believe are beautiful. The source of these specific ideals are said to derive from western cultures but Korea has definitely convoluted and amplified the ideals (Kurek). Americans do get plastic surgery but in Korea, getting plastic surgery is a normal part of life. This is where the contrast between Americans and Koreans can be seen. Ji Yeo may be showing how Koreans are extreme enough to go out and contemplate actual areas to fix and Americans are more likely to just make comments on how beauty ideals should be like.
In one photograph, Ji Yeo is able to capture one of the most complex issues of today’s society. Beauty standards are present amongst every single culture. Ji Yeo seems to be commenting that while each of them may differ slightly, there seems to be an obscure connection between all beauty standards. Ji Yeo may also be making a commentary of how criticism is more real, up front and bold to a person than is encouragement. However, many of the inferences I’ve made on the photographer’s intentions made prior were based on my own observations of a few other photographs within Ji Yeo’s collection and captions associated with the photograph. I believe it is important to acknowledge the actual article associated with the photograph that delves into more about Ji Yeo.
Firstly, in the Daily mail article, it’s revealed by Lauren Brown that the model in the photograph is the photographer, Ji Yeo. I previously believed it was someone else that Ji Yeo had hired to model. The fact that she placed herself in this type of social experiment allows us to see a glimpse of her personal connection with her photographs. While she never explicitly states she’s against plastic surgery, the raw gruesome aftermaths of plastic surgery in her photographs seems to hint at an agenda against plastic surgery. Why else show these scarred and bandaged women? Or take a photograph of herself covered in marks that indicate where she needs to be fixed? Ji Yeo also seems to express her shock by the measures women will go to and says “Of course it is about skin and weight, bone structure and proportion, but more than anything, it is about how much women are willing to sacrifice in search of some measure of perfection” (Brown). Her word choice comes off somewhat somber, going as far to use the word “sacrifice” which is often associated with giving up something very significant. It seems as if she has uncovered the deep unquenchable need that these women have for being perfect and is slightly terrified by it. While her other photographs seem to be there to show this obsession to her viewers, this photograph of herself covered in marks could be her way of showing how society supports and feeds this obsession.
According to Lauren Brown fromthe Daily Mail, Ji Yeo also stated that she struggled with body issues when she was younger and was at one-point contemplating on whether she should get plastic surgery on her entire body. However, Lauren Brown also reveals that Ji Yeo decided to make her photography collection instead of doing the surgeries. The fact that she decided to take these photos instead of doing plastic surgery could be her own way of defending herself from the Korean culture that is relentlessly obsessed with being perfectly beautiful by exposing its hidden cruelty and rigid standards. Compared to other cultures, Korea emphasizes these standards to a point where plastic surgery is the standard and it’s almost strange if one doesn’t fix abnormalities. I believe she wants to show the world the physical and emotional damage it is putting these Korean women specifically through. She wants to reveal with her collection how their criticisms and subtle remarks towards what beautiful is, is pushing women including herself to contemplate or undergo intense procedures.
She also stated in her interview that she was “interested in the visual residue of that sacrifice [plastic surgery], and in exploring the cultural differences and similarities made explicit in the process” (Brown). Ji Yeo seems to be commenting on the similarities between American and Korean beauty standards and perhaps trying to show both cultures. However, these photographs were only posted by American periodicals and magazines. This could be because America has already begun its journey towards acceptance of natural beauty. Sprawled across Facebook are body positive messages. American singers like Alicia Keys are advocating natural beauty by avoiding makeup. Korea on the other hand has had an influx in plastic surgery (Marx). Korea is far from even that first step of acknowledging natural beauty and is rather in the midst of a plastic surgery epidemic. Ji Yeo may want to reach Korean women but may not be able to yet because of Korea’s societal emphasis on being perfect and using plastic surgery to reach that perfection. For now, Ji Yeo seems to be just informing other cultures within America of the plastic surgery mania in Korea and exposing America for its still present emphasis on certain beauty standards. Perhaps, since America is already on the path towards acceptance, she thinks America is in a place as a society to look at itself and its standards. Exposing the truth is the first step towards perhaps addressing and discarding beauty standards in Ji Yeo’s eyes.
Worked Cited
American Society of Plastic Surgeons. "New Statistics Reflect the Changing Face of Plastic
Surgery."American Society of Plastic Surgeons. American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 25
Feb. 2016. Web. 17 Apr. 2017. <
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Brown, Lauren. "Candid Photos Captured Immediately after Cosmetic Surgery Expose the
Extraordinary Lengths South Korean Women Will Go to Look More Western."Daily Mail
Online. Associated Newspapers, 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.
<
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Kurek, Laura. “Eyes Wide Cut: The American Origins of Korea’s Plastic Surgery Craze.”Wilson
Quarterly,Fall 2015, Vol. 39, Issue 4.
Marx, Patricia. "The World Capital of Plastic Surgery."The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 24
Mar. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2017. <
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"Most Widely Spoken Languages in the World."Infoplease. Infoplease, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2017.
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