Post 2: The eye of the beholder

The Twilight Zone has always been one of my favorite TV shows, even though it aired in the 50’s and was in black and white; its content was futuristic and way ahead of its time. My favorite episode from the show called “The Eye of the beholder” is very relevant to our discussion this week about the impact of media on body image. So, in this episode Janet, a woman who has gone through eleven plastic surgeries just to look like everybody else is shown. After her eleventh surgery, she reveals to the audience that once the bandages come off she will be beautiful. However, the reaction of the doctor and nurses is disappointment; the operation has failed, her face has undergone "no change — no change at all". At this point, the doctor, nurses and other people in the hospital, whose faces have never been seen clearly before, are now revealed to be horribly deformed by our perspective, with large and thick brows, sunken eyes, swollen and twisted lips, and misshapen, pig-like snouts. Even though Janet is beautiful from our perspective, she is an ugly woman according to the norms of the society she is in. All she wants to do is become what we would perceive as “ugly” in our world so that she can be considered beautiful in hers.

 And who sets these norms of beauty? The media, of course! The media today dictates what is beautiful and the rest of us must simply follow suit or risk being left out. We all turn to various forms of media to know what’s “in” and what’s “hot”. The media is our guiding light. It is said beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beholder in today’s world seems to be the media.

This is what Janet looked like before the surgery

These are the facial features Janet hoped to have after the surgery (which failed)

The link attached is a 4 minute summarized version of the episode. A little dramatic but I guess exaggeration works for impact.