Makeover Craze Spreads Abroad
Aug 30th 2005
New Horizons: Makeover craze spreads around the world
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
By Lynn Elber
THE ASSOCIATED
PRESS
After performing makeovers on virtually every willing man, woman and
house in America and beholding the result - attractive ratings -
television had only one logical course of action. It had to improve the
world.
Thus was born an international flood of programs aimed at
taking an average-looking planet and giving it the kind of overhaul once
reserved for Hollywood starlets eager to maximize their assets.
Extreme
Makeover: Home Edition has aired from Scandinavia to Africa to Latin
America; a poignant Iraqi version, Labor and Materials, restores
war-damaged homes. The original Extreme Makeover, which started it all
in 2002 on ABC, also is worldwide and jockeying for attention with other
surgery shows.
The corporal makeover trend has allowed American
standards of beauty, often as determined within Beverly Hills city
limits, to established new beachheads abroad. Don't just dream of
looking like your favorite actor; copy their perfection with plastic
surgery!
But adopting American looks doesn't translate to gaining
an American psyche. Doctors who have worked on shows both foreign and
domestic say there are distinct differences in how patients think about
self-improvement and what it means.
There's also a gulf between
doctors here and abroad when it comes to TV fame and how, or whether,
they can capitalize on it.
A British show, Brand New You, offers a window of insight into cultural
variations among patients. Airing on Channel 5 in the United Kingdom and
on BBC America, the series tracks British women who gained a U.S.
beauty rehab with plastic surgeons, a dentist and stylists.
"Americans
want perfection. The British just want to look better. They look
better, they're happy," said Dr. Paul S. Nassif of Beverly Hills, a
specialist in facial plastic surgery who worked on Brand New You and a
number of U.S. shows.
With plastic surgery long entrenched here
both on screen and off, Americans are familiar with their options and
know what questions to ask and how to paint a detailed picture of their
desired outcome, Nassif said.
According to data from the American
Society of Plastic Surgeons, there has been a 700 percent increase in
cosmetic plastic surgery procedures from 1992 to 2004. There were more
than 9million U.S. procedures last year, compared to an estimated 75,000
in the U.K. (The U.S. population totals 297 million vs. the U.K.'s 60
million.)
"British patients don't ask a lot of questions. They'll book surgery
without even seeing you. They're low-maintenance, might be a way to say
it," Nassif said.
Patricia Pitts, a clinical psychologist who
evaluated potential patients for Brand New You and TLC's nonsurgical
series 10 Years Younger, noted sharp differences between Americans and
British applicants.
"When I sat down with those from the U.K.,
their strong concern was would they be judged by family, friends and
culture for doing cosmetic surgery. They thought it would be
misunderstood," she said. Their typical goal: to look as young as they
felt.
Americans wanted the same thing but had higher
expectations. They focused on how their appearance could affect their
chances for success in work and love.
"They're big on first impressions. If you look younger, you have a
better chance of getting ahead in life," Pitts said. They also were
demanding of themselves, stressing the effort they put into exercising
and eating right.
"When I asked Brand New You contestants what
they do for exercise, practically all of them answered, 'Walk the dog,"'
she said.
Makeover patients typically appear to be ecstatic over their
transformations. The doctors who perform them often have reason to smile
as well, as shows swell demand for services in general and the TV
Pygmalions in particular.
Nassif, who already had European
patients familiar with his work revising unsuccessful operations by
other doctors, has seen his overseas customer base increase in recent
years because of exposure from Brand New You and a much-aired BBC
segment he did.
Before, about 1 percent to 2 percent of his
business was from Europe; now it's as high as 15 percent, he said.
Besides the results, he said, patients appreciate both the privacy they
have away from home and the exchange rate of the soft U.S. dollar.
Dr.
William M. Dorfman, the first dentist on Extreme Makeover and part of
Brand New You, is another beneficiary. The perfect American-style smiles
flashed in the shows have turned out to be a bounty for Discus Dental, a
tooth-whitening products company which Dorfman founded and partly owns.