Body Shaming

           For some reason, this generation is very involved in worrying what people’s bodies look like, and humiliating them if it’s something that doesn’t fit the “standards.” Body shaming is usually known as discriminating against people who are overweight, but it may also be towards women who are seen to be “too skinny”. With so many feminism issues, body shaming just adds to the hardships of trying to be a confident woman. 

 Everywhere around the world, social media and advertisements of all sorts, contribute to body shaming. An embarrassingly large number of advertisements always show intensely skinny girls. One of the world’s most popular advertisements is created by the Victoria Secret franchise. Victoria Secret is known as the company who shows off their merchandise with only the “skinniest and the prettiest” girls; guys want to have them, and girls want to be them. But who is to say that, that body is the “ideal body?” Who determines who has a better body than someone else? And why does it matter? 

Women all over the world feel as if they are compelled to live up to these standards that society has created for women. God forbid someone is overweight, because then they’re too ugly. Or, if someone is too skinny, then no one will want them. Society nowadays is all about judging others and how they look, but not many come to realize that no one’s opinion but their own matters, and they need the validation from others. While there are so many advertisements and companies contributing to body shaming, there as just as many artists and stars who fight against it.

Artist Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte, or better known as Orlan, held a strong stance against body shaming. After going through surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, she realized she enjoyed the art of surgery, and the feeling. She then went under nine different surgeries to alter her face. Each surgery intended to rewrite western art on her own body. She did not go through these surgeries because she was at risk, or to alter her self to make her look “better.” She did it because she believed  surgically changing her body could be a powerful work of art. One operation altered her mouth to imitate François Boucher's Europa, another to mimic the brow of Leonardo's Mona Lisa, and another altered her chin to look like that of Botticelli's Venus.

Orlan was asked if she was trying to make herself more beautiful. She responded with, "No, my goal was to be different, strong; to sculpt my own body to reinvent the self. It's all about being different and creating a clash with society because of that. I tried to use surgery not to better myself or become a younger version of myself, but to work on the concept of image and surgery the other way around. 

Is it her aim to change the idea of beauty? Orlan says, "I am not sure I can change such a thing, but I can produce images that are different from those we find in comics, video games, magazines and TV shows. There are other ways to think about one's body and one's beauty. If you were to describe me without anyone being able to see me, they would think I am a monster, that I am not fuckable. But if they see me, that could perhaps change."

           Orlan is an interesting artist because so many people use plastic surgery as a way to make themselves “better,” so they can fit other people’s standards and have bigger breast or a skinnier torso. Orlan twists this idea and makes it the complete opposite. She doesn’t care what others thinks of her, especially after she completed all here surgeries.