Just one look

Plastic surgery is common enough in American culture that people don't think twice when they see it on The Learning Channel or in the pages of Oprah's magazine.

But "Extreme Makeover," a reality series launched recently by ABC, may be adding some edge to the question of where society is headed with all the nipping and tucking.

The fact that the prime-time show has drawn about 12 million viewers per episode - and that participants say their experience is an "education process" for those considering procedures - focuses the concerns: What would it be like if everyone had cosmetic surgery? Would we all start looking alike?

Changing your features is not as controversial as, say, being cloned (unless, perhaps, you're Michael Jackson). And some people, including a few on "Extreme Makeover," do it to fix serious problems.

But as cosmetic surgery becomes more mainstream, unique noses and untucked tummies might be increasingly hard to come by, much the way braces have made crooked teeth largely a thing of the past.

"By the year 2020, no one will ask you whether you've had aesthetic surgery, they will ask you why you didn't have aesthetic

surgery," predicts Sander Gilman, a University of Chicago professor who has studied the history of plastic surgery.

Today, he says, it's acceptable to live in a world where you can change your looks but choose not to. But in 20 years or so, he says, "in certain societies - Brazil, Argentina, more and more the UK, South Korea, Japan - the [question will be], 'Why didn't you take advantage? Why are you walking around bald?' " he says.

Reversing society's fascination with quick fixes could be difficult. Cultural observers say that surgery, now viewed as a viable option, is always in the back of people's minds, even if they never act on it. And it's not just self-assessment - more people now look at one another with what Virginia Blum calls "the surgical gaze."

In her forthcoming book, "Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery," the University of Kentucky professor suggests that America's potent celebrity and consumer cultures are driving people to want to alter their bodies as quickly as fashions change. "Beauty is now as disposable and short-lived as our electronic gadgetry," she writes, "more impermanent than even the flesh it graces...."

In the few years since Professor Gilman wrote his 1999 book, "Making the Body Beautiful," for example, women in Brazil have gone from wanting to reduce their breasts in order to look less primitive, to wanting to enlarge them to conform to what's perceived as the Western norm.

"That's something that's just unbelievable to me, because it happened so quickly," he says.

Settling on one standard of beauty may be one of the biggest hurdles to having a society of Barbies and Kens - who or what would be the model? Blum argues it's a moving target, where people are constantly trying to look "better," but what defines better-looking is always changing.

And, of course, until the aging process is reversed or teens start wearing tents, there will likely always be some pressure to look younger or have a tank-top body.

For one "Extreme Makeover" participant, the key to keeping people from all looking alike lies in the responsible behavior of plastic surgeons. Kiné Corder, a Chicago barber who had corrective work done on her lips, says doctors, like the one on the show, are the gatekeepers, making sure changes are simply an extension of a person's natural look.

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