According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, cosmetic enhancement remains popular, with ten million surgical and non surgical procedures performed in the US in 2009.
With the proliferation of HDTV and with a meticulous public eye, it is much easier to identify cosmetic enhancement flaws.
Even men are not spared for scrutiny, if their youthful look is natural and has not undergone any plastic surgery procedure.
However, it is the women that are at the receiving end, who are scrutinized more closely. In January, actress Heidi Montag, 23, was on the cover of People’s magazine, heralding her ten cosmetic procedures that include liposuction, buttock an breast augmentation and Botox where she underwent them in one day.
She was flooded by media attention along with the flattering cover story of the magazine that include her photo sessions before and after.
With her new look, critics made fun of her while her own mother was shocked as she confided the incident to People’s magazine.
“The era of ‘I look great because I did this to myself’ has passed.” said Shawn Levy, the director and producer of Date Night and Night At The Museum Movies.
Though these people undergoing cosmetic enhancement are comparably small but they are now considered in significant numbers, that film makers and casting executives opt to recruit for natural looking actors without undergoing any manner of plastic surgery.
In Hollywood, few are willing to admit for a facial, a chin or a nose job makeover with the fear of hurting their careers. They rather discussed their own previous personal problem because there is less concern that their confessions of that sort will affect their career.
Sandie Allessi, a casting executive of the Pirates Of The Carribean movies and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button in 2007, according to her, she received hundreds of head shots. Though some of these actresses who arrived for auditions looked nothing with their photographs.
“They would have these huge puffy lips and frozen foreheads,” she said. “You said to yourself ‘Oh, I can’t use you’ I don’t mind if they do a tiny bit of something, but it can’t be obvious.”
With all those surgical procedures undergone by Heidi Montag, she reiterated however, in an interview that she is convinced that she made the right decision as some offers have began to roll in.
The backlash is not against plastic surgery or Botox itself but its poor execution of the procedure that are often flawed and the results are noticeably evident and difficult to correct.