"Who's been telling you, for 10 or 15 years, you're an ugly bastard?"In this day and age, a documentary on plastic surgery has its work cut out. No pun intended. The revolution in cosmetic surgery has been with us for decades, but was particularly prevailant in the 90s, as reality TV brought face-lifts, tummy tucks and boob-jobs into our homes via the boob tube.
In 2007, the average TV viewer has practically been in an operating theatre and scrubbed up, thanks to unflinching live footage of real ops giving us an armchair view of the gross reality behind Pamela Anderson's famous assets.
Louis Theroux, that gangly purveyor of society's extraordinary, returned last night with Under The Knife, another of his occasional documentary films. Could Louis unearth some interesting new facets to this surgery for the vain, psychologically damaged? Well, no; not really. But his amiable tour of some people's pursuit of physical perfection was very entertaining, nonetheless.
It's patently obvious why people decide to get their boobs enlarged or have fat sucked out of their stomachs: it makes them feel better about themselves, quickly. Well, until they realize their new, iron-board flat stomach looks ridiculous with 34C boobs -- so it's back to the surgeon for extra enhancement to correct that oversight. A fool and their money, eh?
Dr Stuart Linda ("the Picasso of breasts") was the first surgeon Louis met; a grinning, upbeat guy whose receptionist, Adrianna, seems to get staff discount in his operating theatre. Adrianna already has a stomach like a slab of fleshy-plastic, thanks to her boss -- complete with a below-the-trouser-line scar and "a new belly-button" that looks like someone stitched it on using a scrap of brown felt. She's already scheduled to get her "parrot nose" straightened and left breast raised.
Then we met Dr Nicolas Chugary, whose face resembled a stocking full of conkers. His specialist is "body-sculpting", which basically means sticking a load of implants in people's bodies to give them the "Arnold Schwarzenegger look" -- circa Terminator, not Terminator 3.
Step forward German-born Adrian Davidson (real name Adolph, and that's not the only thing he's changed since arriving in the US.) Poor Adrian seemed like a nice guy, but has convinced himself the answer to middle-age spread is making your chest look like buttocks.
A more traditionally odd "victim" of these surgeries was 50-year-old Steve Earhart, who resembled a character from The Dark Crystal with sunburn. But I have to admit, he didn't look 50 -- thanks to the wonders of modern surgery, he instead looked like a particularly sinister 40-year-old. So, money well spent.
Taken in isolation, Steve's altered features looked okay, but it's the overall picture that becomes a mess. And therein lies the problem with corrective surgery on people: humans aren't meant to be symmetrical and perfect. Unless your name's Jessica Biel.
Laura Noblin clearly didn't agree, as she's already spending $2,000 a day on a personal image consultant called Eva. Eva's the kind of overpaid nodding dog who earns her fee by applauding any vaguely upbeat comment Laura makes, then squealing "yayyyyy".
Far from being ugly, Laura was just normal and slighly frumpy. Some make-up and better clothes would have sorted her out, really... but, having recently split from her longterm boyfriend Brian, she assumed it must be a physical thing. After being used as a human drawing board (the doctors take this "artist" parallel way too far), Laura was injected to numb incision areas, had her fat sucked out of her stomach, and her brow lifted.
For all its interesting personalities and amusing/freaky scenes, Under The Knife was clearly failing to tell us anything we didn't know already. Louis does a good job at chipping away at people's tough veneers, getting them to reveal the true reasons behind their decisions, but nothing was really surprising us...
Until Louis decided to undergo some liposuction himself, on his moderately fatty stomach...
Our geeky hero was soon stripped bare (with a surgical "codpiece" keeping his modesty), scribbled on by the Rolf Harris of cosmetic surgery, injected with tumescent fluid, and had his fat scrubbed out with a thin poker-like implement. Louis is a pretty reserved guy, but his pre-op sigh spoke volumes!
After the 45-minute procedure, resulting in a bag of luminous orange fatty custard, Louis was squeezed into a corst to prevent seepage and sent on his way.
The need for 3 months of press-ups and gym sessions were gone in under 1 hour! I think Louis missed a trick in not mentioning the other benefits of physical exercise, beyond simply losing fat -- like combating heart disease, improving circulation and general wellbeing. But never mind.
As the documentary drew to a close, Louis caught up with some of the nip-tucked: Adrian was happy with his latest body-sculpt, despite it resulting in a gap between his chest muscles the width of Arnie's bicep; while Laura, admittedly, looked sexier. She even managed to woo back her shallow boyfriend Brian live on camera... awww. I give it 2 months before Brian starts suggesting she get bigger breasts -- y'know, to help with her confidence. Yayyyyy!
Under The Knife reached its conclusion with the new and improved Louis running along a beach, a whole trouser-size slimmer. He said he felt guilt about taking a cosmetic shortcut to physical improvement, as if he'd somehow lost a little part of himself. Literally!
7 October 2007
BBC2, 9.00 pm
