Heidi Montag had 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day. She is 23.

Who the hell is Heidi Montag, you ask? Glad you did. Heidi is one of those reality stars from that show The Hills. I don’t understand that whole genre of show….. I’m not sure if it’s real or fake, scripted or fly-on-wall and I’ve never cared enough to watch an episode.

I’m dimly aware of Heidi only because I watch E! News. Generally, it causes me less anxiety than the regular news. That’s how I found out that she is addicted to plastic surgery and has somehow used the media as a vehicle to legitimise that disturbing mental state.

I’m not sure whether to file this story under ‘freakshow’ or ‘really sad’. I’m going to go with Really Sad Freakshow. And also, What Is The World Coming To.

On Google, there are links to 354 news stories about Heidi’s plastic surgery marathon. I wonder how many there are about Haiti.

As USA Today reports:

Meanwhile Jezebel accuses People magazine of glamourising (and normalising) plastic surgery addiction by devoting a cover to Heidi (and bumping off The Obamas) and 7 pages of coverage and before/after pictures inside:

On November 20, 2009 Heidi Montag spent 10 hours getting a series of cosmetic surgery procedures, including increasing her breast implants to a DDD, getting “sexy ears”, and arching her brow, which Dr. Frank Ryan, her plastic surgeon, admits “isn’t commonly done” to 23-year-olds. In the accompanying 7-page interview, Heidi explains that she wanted to get the operations because her dream is to become a pop star and “it’s a superficial industry.”

Though People asking, “has she gone too far?” on the cover, suggests that there’s some kind of discussion about the dangers of plastic surgery in the magazine, Heidi is basically allowed to spew comments about how surgery was the answer to all of her body image issues. Even magazines like In Touch and Life & Style will usually consult with a “doctor who doesn’t treat the star” and tack on several paragraphs cautioning against becoming addicted to altering your appearance.

People only cites two doctors in its piece. Dr. Ryan justifies operating on Heidi, saying, “She’s doing what every other celebrity does… They just don’t talk about it.” The second doctor gets in six words in a sidebar on the last page. In the only challenge to Heidi advocating going under the knife, the magazine points out that about 5 to 10 percent of people who get cosmetic surgery have body dysmorphic disorder, a condition in which people look normal, “‘but they see a distorted image,’ says Jamie Feusner M.D., a psychiatrist who heads UCLA’s BDD Research Program.”

Yesterday actress Emmy Rossum Tweeted about Heidi’s cover,

It upsets me to see young women in the spotlight advocating plastic surgery. ANY surgery is extremely dangerous&should not be taken lightly, ..much less, used as a tool to increase notoriety or popularity… By putting this on magazine covers, we are somehow legitimizing the dangerous lengths to which some will go for fame and “beauty”

Judging from the public reaction to the songs Heidi has already released, it seems unlikely that her new appearance will catapult her to pop music stardom. However as Rossum points out, the surgery has already allowed her to increase her notoriety by appearing on the cover of People, while just recently she had a hard time getting on the cover of one of the far less legitimate celebrity weeklies.

Heidi already wants another procedure to make her breasts even bigger because when she posed for Playboy, “I didn’t fill out one of the bras and they had to Photoshop my boobs bigger and it was disheartening.” She says this is just the beginning of what she wants to have done and, “I plan to keep using surgery to make me as perfect as I can be.”

And why shouldn’t she? People‘s editors have deemed a reality star’s quest for “perfection” more important than an exclusive interview with the President and First Lady (who were replaced on People’s cover at the last minute).

Six months ago the media was teeming with commentary on how tragic it was that Michael Jackson died never being at peace with his appearance, and many people lamented that a cosmetic surgeons never told him enough was enough. Now when another (albeit far less talented) person in the spotlight announces that she’s “obsessed” with surgery, magazines reward her with fame and publish photos for the public to scrutinize every inch of her more “perfect” body. Charming, that.

Ugh. I am in complete agreement with Jezebel. Why the hell is she being given an opportunity to boost her fame and publicly parade her very tragic addiction in such a glossy, shiny way? What influence is that likely to have on young women who watch that show and want to be famous?

Heidi, have you heard of therapy? What kind of doctor performs 10 procedures on a 23 year old in one afternoon? And how much plastic surgery will it take to cut away her demons?

I have long had a gut-ful of this obsession with before and after articles. I hate them. Whether they’re about diets or surgery or *digs fingernails into palms* post-baby bodies, I think they’re fucking with our heads.

How about more emphasis on what we DO rather than how we look? How about…..how about I go make myself some chamomile tea before I REALLY get going…..

I’ll leave you with a photo of how Heidi used to look. Was it really that bad?