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Saturday, September 1, 2007

"Never Perfect": The Eyes Have It

Wednesday, I was able to attend the Asian Film Festival here in Dallas and see Regina Park’s excellent new documentary, Never Perfect, about the quest by Asian women to achieve their beauty ideal, particularly by having their features changed surgically.

But what is “ideal”? Can one ever really attain it? And just how Asian is it, as opposed to European? These are the central questions of Never Perfect.

The film introduces us to a young woman of Vietnamese heritage, the baby of the family, still living with her mom in a house that she herself owns – she’s successful at an early age and also owns a number of rental properties -- as she eagerly anticipates moving to Los Angeles and being on her own. Mom is nonplussed, but her daughter wants something new! A new city, she says. And along with her big life change, she has finally decided to get “bigger eyes.” This is something she’s thought about for a long time.

One of the first things I notice about her, aside from her strained relationship with mom, is that she’s had her dark hair highlighted with thick, blond streaks.

It turns out that she has grown up with messages from her mother that she’s not attractive with her Asian eyes, the heavy-lidded kind that don’t have a crease. They look too small. Most of the images she sees in TV and movies show women with more European-looking eyes, and most of her friends have them, too. Eyelid surgery seems almost a rite of passage for them. (The movie doesn’t point this out, but non-Asian girls have these rites too – think rhinoplasty in Beverly Hills and breast augmentation in Dallas.)

Commentary within the film addresses the belief that certain features go along with a particular personality. I suspect that, subconsciously, most of us share this belief to some degree. That’s right, deep within us is some stupid little part of the brain that actually thinks people with weak chins are weak-willed, those with close-set eyes are dishonest, and those with high foreheads are smart. Character flaws are revealed to us through physical flaws. This belief is a holdover from the Middle Ages. If you don’t think it’s still in force, talk with a casting director about it. (I’m always pleased when a casting director “casts against type.”)

So what do almond-shaped, Asian eyes mean? Young girls grow up seeing them as part of an “Asian mystique,” with highly sexualized depictions of Eastern women. Some of the images depict mysterious, stiletto-heeled sexual dynamos, the kind James Bond would take to bed and say “don’t taste like European girls”; others show delicate, traditional “China dolls” who are soft-spoken and submissive to men.

(An aside: I may have unintentionally played into this sexual stereotype in my first blog about this movie; I mentioned that many Western men prefer the look of Asian women to that of European women. I meant this as a good thing, to show that Westerners are open to different standards of beauty. After seeing the film, though, I wonder whether the preferences of those men are primarily a response to the hypersexualized and/or submissive stereotypes of Asian girls.)

The movie doesn’t mention this, but I should point out that the preference for larger, more open eyes may indeed be hard-wired into all of us, and it seems to transcend race. Studies have shown that open eyes are considered more attractive; researchers speculate that this is because they make it easier to see the pupils. Large pupils are interpreted as a sign of attraction.

According to the movie, the first article about the operation called “double eyelid surgery” was published in – surprise -- 1896. It grew in popularity when America put military bases in the Pacific; red light districts grew up around the bases, and the women who were considered most attractive to American G.I.s got the most work and made more money. In the 1950s, during the Korean War, plastic surgeons actually did free work for the prostitutes, though I’m speculating that there was more of a barter system in force.

The film points out that Asian eyes aren’t really slanted; that’s a bizarre stereotype. During times of war, “Japs” were categorized as subhuman and caricatured mercilessly, including those slanted eyes.

Of course, today, actresses such as Sandra Oh portray smart, accomplished women, albeit with some serious psychological issues in the case of her character on Grey’s Anatomy but without the relentless sexual overtones. That’s a big step forward. Still, I wonder if the brilliant, hard-driven, antisocial doctor exemplifies yet a different stereotype of the Asian woman.

here’s also a discussion in the film of mixed-race beauty. One young woman says she’s had the message, “Mixed girls are hot!” An increasingly popular opinion among Asian girls is that the ideal of beauty is a racial composite.

In an extremely moving scene – and the one that will linger with me the longest -- the camera stays in close-up on an Asian mom, relating sadly that her “mixed” daughter has made it clear that she rejects the “yellow” side of her genetic heritage. Tears finally come as she realizes her daughter is rejecting her.

Back to our main character, and more mom issues. “I love my mom more than anyone else in the world,” she says, “but she’s done a lot of damage to me.” She says she’s fed up with her mom’s expectation that everything must be perfect. As for changing the appearance of her eyes, she says, “This is what I was cultivated to believe.”

Our main character has put off getting her eyelid surgery because she didn’t want to let her mom think she “got to her,” but finally she goes, and part of the operation is shown onscreen. There aren’t rivers of blood or anything, but it’s still the eye, and this is definitely not for the squeamish. The patient is thoroughly medicated and feels nothing, or else there would be a lot of screaming, but come on, it’s THE EYE.

A surgeon tells us that there are different surgeries for different ethnic looks; Taiwan, Japan, etc., are different. Apparently, some ethnicities can get away with doing a larger, more open eye than others. He says you don’t have to lose your ethnic identity – that you’re not creating a non-Asian eye but a more beautiful eye. This relates to another comment made later in the film: “It’s not taking away ethnicity – we’re emulating other Asians.”

Several sets of “before” and “after” pictures are shown; I notice that the “after” eyes don’t look much different but appear to be wearing false lashes. (I wonder if applying false lashes to the heavier-lidded eye would be painstaking if not impossible.) Overall, the change is very subtle, sometimes so slight that an ignorant Westerner might wonder what all the fuss is about.

I worry a little about our patient when she says things such as “It’ll temporarily make me happier” and “My taste in beauty may change.” She does understand that, unlike breast implants, this alteration is something that can’t be undone. But what if she decides in a few months or years that she’s not as happy as she had wanted to be; will she need to have something else done in her quest for perfection? She observes, “You can always be unhappy no matter how perfect things are.” But what is “perfect,” and where does it end? For some women, this can be the start of plastic surgery addiction.

Fortunately, we learn that (so far) she has had no more surgeries. She examines her eyes in a hand mirror; again, the effect is very subtle. She laughs, “I saw my mom, and she said, ‘You should’ve gotten them bigger!’”

On the way out of the theater, I overheard an Asian woman tell her friend, “My mom used to pinch my nose like this and tell me it needed to be smaller.”

Dear mothers, whatever your race, if you are reading this, please realize that your attitudes about attractiveness will affect your daughter’s self-image for the rest of her life. She listens to everything you say. She’ll carry those messages about her nose and her weight and her lips forever. (It can happen with sons, too; Michael Jackson’s father used to call him “Big Nose,” and we’ve seen where that led!) Maybe you’re uncomfortable with your daughter’s eyes or her ankles because they remind you of your awful ex-husband; if so, KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.

Your daughter could react to your comments by developing an eating disorder, or finding a man who reinforces her poor opinion of herself, or simply distancing herself from you, as the young woman in this film did with her own mom. Please find ways to help your daughter feel positive about her looks.

I still feel a rush of sadness when I remember how my mom, who died four years ago, used to criticize my long fingers and long legs. “Don’t talk with your hands,” she’d admonish, or she’d just give me "The Look" when I’d start gesturing. “Don’t take such big steps.” The message was clear; she thought I was too tall. “Your sister is the perfect height,” she once said of my 5-foot-7-inch sibling. She also said my face was thin and that I needed to gain weight in my face. How was I supposed to gain weight in my face? How was I supposed to subtract height?

Fortunately, I was able to keep in mind that this was the same mom who told me not to raise my hand in algebra class so often if I wanted boys to like me. So I stand tall and wear high heels. And, yes, I love my mom…but I still talk with my hands.

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