Plastic surgery has come to the fore again. After six facelifts, brow lifts, neck lifts and lip lifts, reality star Katie Price has new “butterfly lips” created with tape and filler that enlarges the lips and curves them upwards. Price may have had more plastic surgery than most, but she’s not the only one to go under the knife. Last year, the number of such treatments worldwide was 35 million. Facial surgeries (eyelid lift, rhinoplasty, lip fillers) increased by 20% in 2023. No matter what else happens, be it a pandemic, economic and political crises, wars, human rights violations, we hold on to the belief that if we improve our appearance, it will be better. It can improve our lives.
This is an understandable – if solipsistic – belief, given the attention paid to beautiful people; They seem to be the ones getting the jobs, the relationships, the Oscars. We are much more likely to trust, forgive, and believe good-looking people. Although we know that some treatments end in tragedy, if we can have a piece of that, why not? Last week, Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, died due to complications following her non-surgical “Brazilian butt lift” surgery.
Our quick-fix culture prioritizes appearance above everything else, including mental health. Social media and artificial intelligence further increase this trend. One in three women look at Instagram influencers and think they need to do some work after comparing their faces unfavorably to AI-generated faces. The more algorithms define “beauty,” the more they direct people toward unattainable versions. It’s a doomsday spiral.
Not all treatments are influenced by fashion or fear of aging. Approximately 100 million people around the world live with a facial scar, scar or disease that makes a “visible difference,” as advocacy groups call it. While “disfigurement” may sound more derogatory, it is a surgical term and a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
Surprisingly, people with severe facial injuries do not necessarily experience more psychological distress than people who are concerned about having thin lips or acne scars. Low self-esteem due to facial difference is entirely subjective, and mental illnesses such as body dysmorphia are on the rise. Surgical solutions are often sold as a shortcut to treatment. But there is no quick fix and there is no evidence that plastic surgery makes us happier. On the contrary, the more treatment we receive, the more effort we make; The “new you” is always just around the corner. According to Price, it’s her butt: “’I lost weight. So… that’s the next thing to fill out. beautiful, brave [sic] chubby, plum bum.
The misconception that being more handsome or more beautiful will make us happier, A Different Mannow in US version. Directed by Aaron Schimberg, the film stars Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson. Pearson is a strong advocate for people with visible differences who have neurofibromatosis type 1, a genetic disease that covers the face with benign tumors. He previously contributed to my Interface project, which explores the emotional history of the human face, from plastic surgery to facial transplants. We meet at the Gordon Pathological Museum, King’s College, London; Here we talk about facial injuries, surrounded by wax models teaching about them. A Different Manand what it might reveal about our makeup culture.
Stan plays Edward, who suffers from neurofibromatosis, the same condition as Pearson. Edward lives an unfulfilling existence; Pearson says he is “taking it step by step”; “not unhappy but also not happy”. He lives in a cramped New York apartment and seems awkward and shy, especially around his new neighbor Ingrid (Reinsve), a wannabe screenwriter who thinks she could write a play about Edward. But before this can happen, Edward “becomes involved in a medical experiment that ‘cures’ him”. Edward becomes a conventionally handsome man (played by Stan without his prosthetic mask). After giving up his old life and killing Edward, Guy rises from the ashes. She reinvents herself as a real estate agent, using her looks to sell her dream of a new life.
But nothing has changed inside; The man remains awkward and insecure. When he meets Ingrid and learns that she is writing a play about Edward, he auditions with the aid of a prosthetic mask. She’s right for this role because she tells Ingrid that one of her best friends has a facial difference. However, when Oswald, played by Pearson, appears, he realizes that this is a role he has no idea how to play. In the film, as in real life, Pearson is charming and enterprising; fun to be around. She brims with energy and confidence, unlike Guy, who moves timidly as if afraid of taking up space even in his beautified state. Oswald takes over the game and shows how things should be done, and Guy begins to unravel. As Pearson puts it: “He sees echoes of the past, or the past he might have had, but he cannot bring himself to achieve it. And what follows is a true descent into madness for Edward.”
The crisis at the center of the film is that Stan’s character is not comfortable in either social mask. He could not develop as Edward either because he anticipated that others would reject him or because he had already rejected himself. He couldn’t evolve like Guy because the change was only superficial. After all, disability Different Man is how society treats Edward and how he treats himself.
This fits with what appearance psychologists know about the challenges of facial diversity. It is easy to internalize the abuse suffered by others, and people with visible differences are routinely bullied, harassed, mocked and abused. Just last week, it was reported that Oliver Bromley, who himself has neurofibromatosis Type 1, was asked to leave a restaurant in south London because he was “scaring customers”.
Our historical reverence for beauty and use of facial difference as shorthand for evil does not help those with visible differences. To think Golden Eye, Skyto fall, casino royale And Joker; or Darth Vader; Freddie Krueger and Voldemort. Films have been made specifically about visible differences. freaks (1932), Elephant Man (1980), open your eyes (1997) – but there is little from the perspective of the individual concerned, and almost nothing in the last 20 years. It matters why these movies are made and who is involved. Pearson wonders: “Is it because they’ve had a lived experience, or is there some kind of fascination with the whole thing; are they trying to make audiences more compassionate and empathetic, or are they looking for shock value?”
Pearson has been open about the harassment she experienced. When we met in King’s Cross he had already spent the morning dealing with social media trolls. Today, with so much emphasis on cosmetic enhancement, people expect Pearson to be able to physically transform like Edward did. It would be impossible even if he wanted to: “All these tumors are wrapped around blood vessels and nerves, and I don’t think people realize that. People say ‘get surgery’ and I think: ‘Man, this is after operation.'”
There is more than one way to be socially marginalized. AI, which promises so much in terms of medical diagnosis and treatment, does not serve people with visible differences very well. “It’s the bane of my fucking life,” Pearson says. “You just read my passport, you do it on the internet and it says ‘that’s a bad photo’ and you say no, that’s a great photo but your software doesn’t appreciate that. I have trouble with automated booths at airports; I need to unlock my iPhone with a pin number because it won’t recognize my face.”
Oliver Bromley, who has neurofibromatosis Type 1, was told to leave a London restaurant because he was ‘scaring customers’.
Pearson isn’t supposed to be this durable, but he is. Similarly, the character of Oswald subverts the audience’s assumptions by disregarding his situation. Unaware that he may feel socially inadequate, Oswald is born expecting to be accepted and loved. And HEappearance psychologists say this is the only way; Because if you are depressed or incompetent, if you exhibit the timid actions that Edward did, you will invite incompetence in others. It’s true that confusing expectations cause people to behave differently; Often the reason people avoid the gaze of those who are visibly different is because they are unsure how to behave.
The disturbing thing about this approach is that it puts all the work on the individual, with a noticeable difference. It requires individuals like Oswald, and by extension Pearson, to serve as examples for the “appearance-diverse community.” It’s a role Pearson has graciously taken on, though he didn’t always choose it. “When you have the ‘role model’ label thrust upon you, and it affects you, sometimes people think you speak for everyone. And I can only speak for myself. I care about advocacy. Whereas other people might say, ‘it’s not my job to explain that to you.’ So whose is it then? Who is better equipped to do this than me? So if I talk about it sickeninguntil I get bored, which means someone like me can have an easier ride and that makes the world a better place, then rock and roll. It’s not all about me,” Pearson laughs. “It should be, but it’s not.”
Critics applauded the film’s refusal to give audiences an easy answer to the question of facial difference. I’m interested in how far we can transcend a person to see them in their entirety. We will be improved as a society when Pearson appears in a movie that does not talk about visible differences. I glare at Pearson repeatedly as I walk him to his taxi, and I’m not sure if it’s because of his fame or his looks. He told me that when he first met Stan and he wanted to get into this role, he told him, “I could talk to you about a disfigurement for years until the cows come home, and you would never do that.” never understand. But equally, you understand what it is like to be known and thus lose privacy. I’ve always said that the two ways to lose your anonymity in society are either to have a disfigurement or to become famous. So I fooled myself on both counts. People still think they own you or you owe them something.”
Dr Fay Bound Alberti is professor of modern history at King’s College London, where she is director of the Center for Interface and Technology and the Body. His new book Face Value: A Cultural History of Being Human will be published By Allen Lane in 2025