My Beautiful, Self-Deprecating Mommy

I’m not proud of the fact that I read The Superficial, nor am I proud that I retrieved this nugget of information from him. I just thought it was too good to pass up, for obvious reasons.

A Florida plastic surgeon has written a children’s book for kids whose mothers have undergone plastic surgery. Dr. Michael Salzhauer got the idea for the book watching puzzled kids come with their mommies to the doctor to have their bodies chopped up, chewed up, and spit out into Barbie look-alikes. (Couldn’t they get find babysitters?) In the book, which is aimed at 4-to-7-year-olds, a young girl’s mom gets a nose job, a tummy tuck and new boobs. (Though they don’t mention this because, as the doctor says, that one is too hard to explain to kids.)

The sample of the book, which can be read here, shows the mom explaining to her daughter that mommy will come back prettier than ever. The daughter replies that her mommy is “the prettiest mommy in the whole wide world,” but her mother rejects her daughter’s compliment. Not only is the daughter likely confused and slightly disturbed by the fact that mommy looks like she fell out of a tree into a pit of steak knives and crow bars, but she has now been told that she is wrong, and that her notion of beauty is wrong, and her mommy is actually not pretty.

So now, we have a) reinforced a socially constructed standard of beauty upon a young, impressionable girl who is not able to define beauty by her own standards yet, b) told the girl she is wrong for believing her mom is pretty, and c) shown her that as a woman, it is necessary to be beautiful. But wait, there’s more.

In the Newsweek article, the doctor implied that many of the women on which he performs surgery are there because they have retained excess weight and saggy breasts from being pregnant. So now, add to the confusion above, a little girl who might perceive it to be her own fault that her mommy is unhappy with herself. Mommy has to go through all the pain and inconvenience of plastic surgery because she is unhappy about her appearance, all because she had a baby. Look at what you did to your mommy, little girl! You made her sad about how ugly she is and nothing you can say will make her feel better.

While I am not demonizing plastic surgery (with three tattoos, eight piercings, dyed hair and a make-up-soaked face, who am I to judge about any body modification?), I think it is inappropriate to help children understand with a picture book that could confuse them even further and might even make them feel guilty about why their moms are getting the surgery. Rather than toss a book at them, mothers (or fathers – plenty of men undergo plastic surgery) could sit down and discuss it with their children, actually talking to them (can you imagine?) about why they are having their surgery and assuring them it isn’t their fault.

I suppose the cover also disturbs me, with the newly-improved “Beautiful Mommy” surrounded by Disneyesque fairy dust that symbolizes a magical quality, a positive aura surrounding her, while the little girl (not surrounded by the magic dust) showers her with excited praise. (And why does mom have a bare midriff, anyway? Real beautiful mommies know that went out with the 90s.) If you’re a mom who plans on going under the knife, make sure your child knows they, too, are beautiful, with or without surgery.

What is this, Boston?

It may become a lot harder for new bars to obtain liquor licenses that will allow them to stay open until 4 A.M. A sign that New York is becoming uncool: you can even party in Albany until 4 A.M. And there are diners open even longer than that.

A good take on the fiasco from Gawker:

“Talk about a cock-block. Community boards are making it so hard for new Manhattan bars to get a liquor license that allows them to serve liquid happy until 4 a.m., because they hate the things that make New York better than everywhere else. Also something about noise pollution or whatever. But what about not-getting-any pollution? These new bars will have to close up at 2 a.m. and everyone knows that true love is only found in the hours between 2 and 4 a.m. And here we thought the city was trying to get us to use all those free condoms.”

Read the whole story here.

Week 1: Fight with Spain, offend women

Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi is a lucky guy. Not only has he been elected as prime minister of the most dysfunctional government in Europe for a third time, but within one week of his victory, he has picked a fight with the prime minister of Spain and managed to make marginalizing comments to the press about women.

From the London Times Online:

“Mr Berlusconi, who won a sweeping victory in this week’s Italian election, told a radio station: ‘Zapatero has formed a government that is too pink, something that we cannot do in Italy because there is a prevalence of men in politics and it isn’t easy to find women who are qualified.’

Mr Zapatero, a self-declared feminist, made equal rights a centrepiece of his first term in office, passing a law making it compulsory for electoral lists and even company boards to be composed of at least 40 per cent women. This week he suggested that he would go even further in his second government by naming more women than men to his Cabinet. ‘Now he’s asked for it,’ Mr Berlusconi said. ‘He will have problems leading them.’

The remark, which aides said was meant to be light-hearted, passed almost unnoticed in Italy, which is used to Mr Berlusconi’s jokes and gaffes — as well as his unreconstructed male chauvinism. In Spain, however, it was greeted with disbelief.”

Read the rest of the article here.

The 2008 International Human Beatbox Convention

Seriously deprived of hip-hop for almost four months now, I spent my last Saturday in London checking out the 2008 International Human Beatbox Convention, which runs this weekend in the Front Room of Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre. Like most cultural events in England (thank you, post-war socialism and subsidized arts), admission is free. While the crowd mostly consisted of teens who wandered in from the nearby skate park and twenty-somethings who smelled like Camden, there were a surprising number of moms, dads and couples with young boys who came to watch the unsigned amateurs rock the open mic portion of the day. Plus, I felt at-home amongst all of the dudes wearing baseball hats. (I saw the most I have seen since I’ve been here during open mic, where four of the performers sported caps.)

What I really liked about this (and open mics in general) is that it’s full of people showing off their talents simply because they love what they’re doing. It’s kind of like watching college basketball. These aren’t the guys who get record deals, and they know it. And as I mentioned, it’s free, so anyone can attend, including unruly teenagers looking for inspiration and young college kids who have been screwed by the exchange rate. Beatboxing is the new rap – no fancy clothes, no instruments and no rich kids. The left-wing NYU girl in me rejoiced.

My only gripe? This field is seriously lacking of girls. Where are all the women beatboxers? Are they discouraged by the male-dominated scene or does it not appeal to them? It would have been awesome for any female to be at the open mic session (maybe there were some at the ones I couldn’t get to) and give the boys the business.

My favorites were 3-man band Corroboree, Dainjamouth + Effektd, Boris FX (pictured above), Eachbox (who flew in all the way from California) and 12-year-old Glenn from France, who was nervous but seriously competed with the rest of the older guys. (At the start of his performance, he proclaimed, “I’m not so good as everyone else because I’m just 12 here” – and ended up getting the biggest reaction from the crowd out of all the beatboxers.)

It wasn’t all original material, though: the Beat Warriors from Finland hyped up the crowd with renditions of Gangsta’s Paradise, Hooked on a Feeling, Gasolina and Who Let The Dogs Out. (Given the fact that Brits love music that is at least five years old, it was a huge hit.)

For more on the history of beatboxing, read up here.

Want to make music but don’t have the cash to learn the drums or hire Timbaland to produce your record? Learn to beatbox on your own or improve upon your skills. I’m talking to you, Blake Lewis.

Savage Love and Loss

I’m a longtime reader of sex advice columnist Dan Savage (published weekly in Metroland for all of you in the Capital Region). This week, instead of words of wisdom about fetishes and cheating partners, he wrote a column eulogizing his mother, who died this week. He says,

“Perhaps a sex-advice column isn’t an appropriate place to eulogize an articulate, elegant woman, a practicing Catholic named for the patron saint of hopeless causes and, perhaps consequently, a Cubs fan. I mean, really. Eulogizing my mother back here with the escort ads? So let’s not think of this as a eulogy. Let’s think of it as a thank-you note, the kind of nicety that my mother appreciated.“

Having written a eulogy for my grandmother almost one year ago (not in a sex column, mind you), I found his tribute to his mother really interesting. It’s hard to be able to articulate grief without sounding cheesy at best, but Savage did it with humor and emotion, and I appreciated his honesty. Check it out here.