Ethnic plastic surgery, or ethnic modification, is

plastic surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes cranio ...

intended to change an individual's appearance to look more or less like a particular race or

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

. Popular plastic surgery procedures which may have an ethnically-motivated component include

rhinoplasty Rhinoplasty ( grc, ῥίς, rhī́s, nose + grc, πλάσσειν, plássein, to shape), commonly called nose job, medically called nasal reconstruction is a plastic surgery procedure for altering and reconstructing the nose. There are two ty ...

(nose surgery) and

blepharoplasty Blepharoplasty ( Greek: ''blepharon'', "eyelid" + ''plassein'' "to form") is the plastic surgery operation for correcting defects, deformities, and disfigurations of the eyelids; and for aesthetically modifying the eye region of the face. Wit ...

(eyelid surgery).Cosmetic Surgery Goes Ethnic
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Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...

has been discussed in the context of ethnic plastic surgery. In her book, ''Venus Envy: A History of Cosmetic Surgery'', Elizabeth Haiken devotes a chapter to "The Michael Jackson Factor" presenting "

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...

, Asian, and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

women who seek

WASP A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

noses and

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

breasts. They are caught in the vexed immigrants' dilemma of struggling not only to keep up with the Joneses but to look like them, too."America's Paint and Body Shop
/ref>

Ethical considerations

Plastic surgeons Chuma J. Chike-Obi, M.D., Kofi Boahene, M.D., and Anthony E. Brissett, M.D., F.A.C.S. distinguish between motivations of aesthetics and racial transformation for patients of African descent seeking plastic surgery. In their opinion, "Patients whose desired surgical outcomes result in racial transformation should be educated about the potential risks of this objective, and these requests should generally be discouraged." Feminist scholars have split views on the subject. Christine Overall, professor of philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, has written that personal racial transformation, or as she puts it "transracialism", belongs to a larger class of personal surgical interventions. This larger class includes

transsexual Transsexual people experience a gender identity that is inconsistent with their assigned sex, and desire to permanently transition to the sex or gender with which they identify, usually seeking medical assistance (including sex reassignm ...

identity change, body art,

cosmetic surgery Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes cranio ...

Munchhausen syndrome Factitious disorder imposed on self, also known as Munchausen syndrome, is a factitious disorder in which those affected feign or induce disease, illness, injury, abuse, or psychological trauma to draw attention, sympathy, or reassurance to th ...

, and labiaplasty. Her basic thesis is that the arguments against the ethical nature of racial transformation (e.g. "it's not possible", "betrayal of group identity", "reinforces oppression", etc.) stand or fall with the ethical arguments related to transsexual change.

Cressida Heyes Cressida J. Heyes (born 1970) is a British and naturalized Canadian philosopher, currently employed as the Henry Marshall Tory Chair at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and formerly as the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Gender and Sexu ...

, professor of Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Ruth ...

, disagrees with Overall's schema. Heyes feels that racial transformation is fundamentally different from gender transformation since race is also determined by ancestry, personal cultural history and societal definitions. Hence ethical considerations of transracial surgery are different from ethical considerations in transsexual surgery.

In popular culture

In the '' South Park'' episode "

Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" is the first episode in the ninth season of the American animated television series ''South Park''. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 9, 2005. In the episode, Mr. Garrison undergoes a ...

" Kyle undergoes an ethnic plastic surgery called "negroplasty" to qualify for the basketball team. In the 2008 movie ''

Tropic Thunder ''Tropic Thunder'' is a 2008 satirical action comedy film directed by Ben Stiller, who wrote the screenplay with Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen. The film stars Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Jay Baruchel, and Brandon T. Jackson as a ...

'', Kirk Lazarus goes through a controversial surgery to make his skin darker to play an African American soldier.

References

{{Racism topics Plastic surgery Race and society Body modification process Identity (social science) Race (human categorization) Conceptions of self Ethically disputed medical practices Body modification

Ethical considerations

In popular culture

See also

References