Doyle:Media Analysis

Kelly doyle
Nip/Tuck: Carving with an Anti-Feminist Agenda?

“Fix your skin, they seem to say, and you'll fix your spirit” (Gilbert). Nip/Tuck, a popular television series about plastic surgeons, managed to raise ratings as well as eyebrows over the ongoing three season series. While some critics praise the edgy promiscuous nature of the show, many others condemn it for the mixed messages that young audiences might receive. One of the major criticisms is that the show fails to explicitly declare the dangers of casual plastic surgery and that America’s youth might begin to believe that plastic surgery is the only way to achieve popularity and happiness. Despite its weak satirical attempts to suggest that plastic surgery may not always be the way to go, it enforces the anti-feminist ideal that outward beauty is the only way to happiness. The show enforces this idea in two ways: that these surgeons force their notions about beauty onto their girlfriends, lovers, or wives, and secondly, they use their idea of beauty as a weapon against woman they are intimate with, which creates a fervent desire for plastic surgery. The main characters Sean McNamara and Christian Troy center their lives around their careers and the idea that beauty and youth bring wealth and happiness. In order to ensure their air of accomplishment and perfection, Troy and McNamara attempt to surround themselves with attractive women. Christian habitually has intercourse with younger women in order to emphasize his affixation with youth and beauty. “ ‘I don’t want to be pretty,’ the aspiring model whom Christian lured from bed to the operating room whispers pleadingly, ‘I want to be perfect.’ He dumps her before the stitches come out” (Stanley). Christian repeatedly lures women into bed with him by complimenting their looks. In season three, Christian tells a woman buying mascara in a drug store, “sweetie, don’t give into Covergirl. Your natural beauty can only be damaged with that overpriced goop” (Nip/Tuck). These types of comments give these women a false sense of security while feeling especially gorgeous because a plastic surgeon believes that they are naturally beautiful. Another example surfaces when Sean McNamara’s wife “contemplates breast implants to rekindle their marriage” (Stanley). Throughout the series, Sean’s wife (Julia) sporadically becomes insecure with their marriage blaming her old age as the reason why her husband is cheating on her and losing sexual interest. The fact that Sean is a plastic surgeon most certainly plays into why she feels the need to constantly reinvent and improve her physical appearance. However while she spends her time exercising and attempting to perfect her body, Sean is out cheating on Julia with a younger chiropractor. This leads to Julia becoming more devastated and loses more and more self esteem. Another episode in season three shows Christian and Sean prepping for surgery when Sean declares, “God. Sometimes I wish I were single” (Nip/Tuck). Christian replies, “Remember for every beautiful girl, there’s a man who is tired of screwing her” (Nip/Tuck). This selfish and shallow statement proves that these men force their idea of beauty upon their partners in order to pressure their significant other into pursuing perfection. However, this goal immediately backfires on these women because the surgeons are never satisfied with their efforts. This agenda is most certainly anti-feminist because it reinforces the idea that women are only valuable if they are attractive according to society’s standards. Furthermore, it pressures women to believe that their worth is determined by whether or not the opposite sex finds them to be attractive. These methods are how Dr. McNamara and Dr. Troy successfully manipulate women into thinking that they are below average and always feel the need for self-improvement. Another anti-feminist aspect to Nip/Tuck is that the surgeons try to recruit patients by hitting on them and slyly telling them insignificant flaws they have on their bodies. “[Christian] preys upon beautiful women, sleeping with them and then convincing them to get expensive and unnecessary surgery” (Menon). After intimacy in bed together, he attacks them at their most vulnerable moment. There are several instances where Christian will seduce a woman solely for the purpose of attracting more clientele and bringing profits to the office. He feeds on their insecurities to make them believe in his accusations of their imperfections. They are blinded by the subconscious desire to be accepted especially by a male. This fuels the patriarchal system and encourages women to berate themselves to the point of going under the knife. They desire to feel accepted and society defines this acceptance for females as having external, artificial beauty. One example in season two is when Christian tells an older female that is lying in bed with him, “You have an amazing body for a woman your age. But if I may offer my professional advice, your ass could look half your age with my help” (Nip/Tuck). Later that morning, she followed Christian to the operating room. Stanley criticizes this show saying, “Most of their patients are beautiful, neurotically insecure women who need hobbies, not larger breasts or smaller noses”.
Similarly, this aspect of the program proves to be anti-feminist as well because it goes against feminist ideals that men are not the key to success, happiness, or fulfillment. This relates back Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth” which defines and criticizes society’s impossible standards for beauty. Wolf writes, “In assigning value to women in a vertical hierarchy according to a culturally imposed physical standard, it is an expression of power relations in which women must unnaturally compete for resources that men have appropriated for themselves” (121). This idea suggests that women are generally conditioned by a patriarchal society that approval of men is necessary for accomplishment and happiness, and it encourages them to actively pursue men because age will catch up to them and there are only so many good men out there to choose from. Christian and Sean play a part of this patriarchal system by creating an illusion of trust and ensuring false security in women they interact with in order to nudge them into the operating room. Every consultation begins with either doctor asking the patient, “Tell me what you don’t like about yourself” (Nip/Tuck). This immediately triggers insecurities in their patients which ultimately leads to more money for the office.
Sean and Christian’s characters both participate in a television series that degrade women and devalue beauty by defining it solely on outward appearance. Although the producers claim to integrate satire on society’s harsh standards of beauty in the series, the show fails to blatantly criticize these “norms” and instead embeds “the beauty myth” deeper into the minds of America’s youth.
I believe a critical analysis of this television series is important because so many young women are coerced into thinking that plastic surgery can boost self esteem and make them happy. The theme song to the series features the lyrics, “Make me beautiful. A perfect face… A perfect life” (Nip/Tuck) which suggest that plastic surgery leads to perfection and fulfillment. Seeing these gorgeous women on television may inspire them to invest in having work done which may only lead to a skewed perception of confidence and beauty. I believe that young women need realistic images of average women so they are not seduced into ideas of perfection that are unattainable.