Social Dreams Constructed of Plastic Reality

Social Dreams Constructed of Plastic Reality

The new face of reality is constructed of features from 64 individual girls and printed in magazines as a comparison tool for you to want to look like her. When the World Wide Web and computer technology slithered into mainstream, I am sure that the creators were not thinking of all the negative aspects of these tools that would eventually be turned out. Contemporary theorists have become aware of the false images that are being created and used in advertising today and if Karl Marx were alive today, he might be stunned that false consciousness would accompany false images constructed in the media turning individuals to dream of using plastic surgery, now poetically coined cosmetic surgery to make it seem more user friendly like the computer to change bodies into a carbon copy of the false images. Thomas Luckmann and Peter Ludwig Berger wrote about the affect of society constructing reality for individuals in 1966 in their book The Social Construction of Reality. In this perspective the authors identify that in the first stage people put out definitions of situations (i.e. what is beautiful, what is ugly) and in the second stage these definitions are made to seem real so that in the final stage of constructing reality, the individual internalizes the definitions. Some extreme examples of internalizing societies definitions of beauty include people using plastic surgery to completely change their whole body from face to feet and everything in between. One such individual that stands out because of highly publicized emphasis on the transformation to her physical appearance is Actress/Singer Heidi Montag (Heidi).

Heidi has made an extreme change to her body through cosmetic surgery. The number of alterations is in the double digits and there is an emphasis on reducing and enlarging those features that society highly spotlights as valuable or problematic. Heidi changed her face by having a brow lift, Botox injections, rhinoplasty (twice), fat injections in the face, a chin reduction, liposuction of the neck, and pinning of the ears back toward the side of the head. Her body changes included liposuction of the waist, hips and thighs, the lower back scooped (a new procedure never performed before) and the waist pinched in, breast augmentation (twice) to a size F and butt augmentation. In just three years, Heidi has had the aforementioned procedures and is only just now 23 years old. Heidi professes to be a devout Christian and wants to be the best version of herself that she can be, inside and out (Garcia, 2010). Heidi has allegedly told reporters that because of her [position as an actress and singer] alterations can be necessary (Nudd, 2010). The line of work she is in requires she look great and these surgeries have helped her do that. She feels her performance in singing and acting has improved with her confidence after the surgeries. Heidi told reporter Nudd that these surgeries have made her the best version of herself in every way; a vague and empty statement at best. The reports of her having her own mother arrested and removed from her home have appeared in the headlines in the last few days. This comes as a result of her mother talking about her surgeries as a poor choice and speaking out against her daughter's choices. What is underneath the surface of Heidi electing to change her appearance from cute and natural to hyper sexualized and Barbie-like may be playing out in the news with the forcible removal of her mother from her home by the marine bodyguards that surround Heidi and her husband. It can be speculated that there may have been a problem with the bond she had with her mother as a child and her distorted body image may well be a result of that disconnected bond.

According to the social construction of reality, when individuals express that they must take an action because of their position thus making real that they have no choice, the observers of the action[s] are left with a reduced number of choices. So Heidi stating that she had no choice but to have these surgeries because of her acting and singing career[s] leaves her audience of young girls thinking they have no choice but to follow in her footsteps. The shared experience of Heidi's surgeries becomes a shared reality to all observers making the "experience as objectively factual and subjectively meaningful" (Wallace, & Wolf, 2006: p. 285). What observers do not consider is that the actions taken by an individual are subjective and may not be appropriate or beneficial to the observer. The quoting of the individual [Heidi] in magazines lends itself to a personal dialogue between her and her observers creating a false conversation wherein the observers draw on the experience and externalize the actions and create a social reality. The constancy of the