The Consequences of Society’s Unhealthy Obsession With Feminine Beauty

Ever since Ariana Grande announced her appearance as a judge on The Voice this past March, plastic surgery rumors, particularly a nose job, have been trending all over the internet.

Since the premiere of Season 21 in September, she has posted a new selfie almost every week that has drawn the attention of fans and haters alike. Reviewing the discourse on Twitter and Instagram, it’s surprisingly difficult to separate the fans from the haters. Both sides of the “debate” are equally distasteful.

Haters were claiming that Ariana looks drastically different while fans were denying that a plastic surgeon has ever come within ten feet of her.

This was apparently very important to stress because, unlike other celebrities who need plastic surgery, Ariana is an ethereal being who’s remained completely and naturally perfect; untouched by evil cosmetic devices.

As a lover of pop culture and all things celebrities, plastic surgery rumors have always piqued my curiosity. I am relatively informed about various procedures. Due to being a woman with body dysmorphia, I’ve thoroughly researched and considered many of them myself.

Although Ariana has never confirmed the rumors, I’d be willing to bet that she has been altering her appearance for years. Anyone with eyes will agree, unless they are blinded by the stigma of cosmetic surgery. However, that’s not the point.

Why does it matter if she decided to slim her nose? It shouldn’t. What concerned me was just how seriously people took this social media discourse.

It wasn’t Twitter and Instagram alone. There are countless YouTube videos, opinion pieces, and tabloids detailing the timeline of Ariana’s facial structural changes.

Let’s be real. We exist in a culture that would have compelled Marilyn Monroe to inject her lips full of Juvederm as her secretary schedules a follow-up brow lift and jaw-reshaping.

When anything about a woman can potentially be considered a flaw, especially if compared to an egregiously photoshopped image of JLO fresh out of her fifteenth chemical peel of the year, can we blame women for electing to change themselves as soon as they have the money to do so?

What the Twitter users who are so quick to criticize or deny plastic surgery rumors don’t realize is that collectively, we are part of the reason why the female celebrity image has been created into a business strategy.

The suspicions of these non-fans were being used as insults to hurl at Ariana. With this context, it seems to make sense that her stans would flock to her defense. However, the way in which they fought back left me feeling queasy.

It wasn’t only the sexist haters that were feeding into the misogynistic stigma surrounding cosmetic procedures. Ariana’s fans were relentless in their disbelief of the rumors on the most delusional level.

Her fans were furiously adamant in their denial of the accusations. What shocked me was the level of emotion in their responses. A lot of the comments read so reactively, you would have thought that these fans were personally offended by something that should have no effect on their lives.

Her so-called loyal fans’ dedication to squashing these rumors might have something to do with the fact that she denied speculations about her alleged nose job that were previously circulating in 2019.

”Hayyy this my birth nose what tf did I log onto today lemme have a cute nose damn (sic),” Ariana tweeted that December.

Whether she was lying or telling the truth (at the time), this is all she has ever revealed regarding those claims.

Why does her face matter so much to us?

The progression of social media has allowed us more access to celebrities’ lives than we ever should have, thus creating a culture of unhealthy and obsessive interests. This mixed with our misogynistic societal views is a deadly combination.

The media has been notorious for crucifying female celebrities who choose to get plastic surgery or injections for decades. The stigma of cosmetic procedures in the headlines has stuck with us through the years, which has caused pop stans (and regular fans) to view these rumors as completely negative.

While this discourse around female features continues, I’ve noticed that nobody ever seems to consider the fact that women in the spotlight are obligated to make these choices if they want to continue a successful career.

All Of Your Favorites Have Had Work Done

Plastic surgery has become the default way for the affluent to cope with patriarchal beauty standards and further their prosperity. The maintenance of a youthful and idealistically feminine image goes hand in hand with remaining relevant as a female celebrity.

The framing of the “natural woman” being superior for not conforming is as ludicrous as it is sexist. None of these celebrities are natural. Not even your fave. And that shouldn’t matter!

These celebrities are required to be conventionally attractive from the start, and they sustain their fame by investing thousands of dollars per year on facial maintenance and sometimes bodily reconstruction.

They have access to top-tier plastic surgeons, yes. But it doesn’t stop there. They also have help from dermatologists, the best skin care on the market, and physical trainers.

This is why it is positive for us to acknowledge when celebrities get work done. It can help us to separate ourselves from unnecessary comparison instead of continuing to chase the best regimen and expecting to wake up looking like Beyonce.

Everything We See Is A Trap

I can’t be the only one who finds it incredibly eerie that a few instagram selfies of Ariana Grande held so much significance in these people’s lives. Our society is completely absorbed by female beauty. Whether we convey this through hypercriticism or actual worship of a celebrity woman’s form, it’s not healthy on either side.

Although we did not create them, we uphold patriarchal ideas about feminine perfection every single day by feeding into these headlines and comment threads. These habits we’ve learned are harmful, especially for women.

When women are exposed to this unreasonable criticism of seemingly perfect celebrities available on Twitter and Instagram, they are subconsciously learning how to look at themselves through a harsher lens.

It doesn’t help that illusory representations of women are everywhere. Not only are they on social media, but in magazines, billboards, pornography, television and even seemingly innocent cartoons/anime.

Our society’s emphasis on beauty is set up to fabricate female “flaws” and push aesthetic elitism. If women are forever insecure, they will spend more money trying to fix themselves with a bandaid regimen and placebo vitamin c serums, thus serving the beauty industry.

It is problematic that many of us, particularly young women, are so invested in the lives and physicalities of celebrities. The constant comparison needs to stop. We are not even close to the same level as the Hollywood elite. And due to classist systems, we never will be.

It’s Not Just Ariana

The Kardashians are an excellent example of a product of this capitalization of female insecurities. Over the past fifteen years, we witnessed the entire family evolve to fit (and often create) the ever-changing beauty standards in order to remain on top.

Kim Kardashian has received ridicule ever since she first became relevant. She had to face a barrage of misogynistic hate about her sex tape on top of plastic surgery accusations. This was during the early 2000s when the trend of obliterating successful women in the tabloids was at its height.

Kim was firm on her insistence that she’d never had work done. While this denial of the surgery allegations painted her renowned, disproportionate shape as naturally attainable, how could we expect her to tell the truth about this?

She was constantly under fire and had to be strategic about how she could dodge the flames while maintaining her relevance in such a harsh climate.

The rest is history. I’m convinced that if she initially told the truth, she wouldn’t have the size-able empire that she has today. It was both a genius business move and a sad repression. But it was what she had to do, because the world wasn’t ready for this truth.

I used to place all of the blame on the Kardashian family for the choices they made. However, I’ve since decided that it’s not productive to judge them.

They did what they felt was necessary in order to financially thrive. As someone who has never come close to this access to opportunity and power, I can hardly imagine what I’d do in their shoes.

There’s something much bigger than the all-powerful Kardashians at play here. Instead of squabbling over how greedy they may or may not be, we need to ask ourselves why their schemes were accepted within the industry, and why they worked on us like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

Although Mama Jenner is a marketing genius, we can’t give her all the credit. This is what their network demanded, and we ate it up, just as they knew we would.

The Price She Chose To Pay

Only Ariana knows the real truth about her features. Unless she decides to disclose this information to us, it’s none of our business. If she did alter her appearance, it was her personal choice.

Although I suspect her decision was heavily influenced by the standards of celebrity culture, I like to think she wouldn’t have gone through with the procedures if she didn’t truly want to.

Ariana was blessed with insane musical talent which eventually thrust her into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Since that opportunity, she has flourished into one of the biggest pop sensations of our time.

Many talented people are turned away from Hollywood or even choose to walk away because they refuse to conform to the standards. Ariana did not want to give up her dream, so she accepted the requirements.

With her dream came immense societal and industrial pressures to look a certain way. Her face and body became her brand, which has since relied on highly conventional and worryingly youthful feminine aesthetics.

It is also worth mentioning her brand’s dependency on racial stereotypes. She’s been accused of black-fishing and Asian-fishing several times during her career.

However, just like with the Kardashians, the systems that turned these superficial details and controversies into profitable business moves are ultimately to blame. We can try to make character judgments about Ariana or Kim, but we have no idea what it’s like to be in their positions.

If we’re going to judge them, we must additionally take accountability for being a part of an audience that condones all of this by continuing to obsess over the female form.

I used to feel guilty about wanting plastic surgery. Personally, my desire for a more symmetrical face does stem from insecurity. But I’m aware that these insecurities are contrived by the media and are unfortunately a part of being a woman. I am not a celebrity, yet I feel like I both need and want to look like one.

In the culture we’ve created, we will nitpick anything about a female in the spotlight because the media likes to appeal to the misogyny in all of us. It is a tactic that will never fail unless we collectively stop reading this frivolous clickbait.

Accomplishing this would require us all to rethink our shallow fixations on feminine beauty combined with petty gossip, which I’ll admit, is easier said than done.