7 Most Unfortunately Phrased Excerpts from a 1980s Teen Magazine Plastic Surgery Article

(Part 2 of my in-depth Critical Analysis of a 1988 issue of ‘Teen Magazine. Read Part 1 here.)

Before we begin, let me state up front: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG with elective plastic surgery. Have it, don’t have it—it’s your choice, and I’m grateful for every technological advance that allows us more choices in life. If you want to change one or more of your physical features, whether it’s for comfort or confidence, go for it. Nothing wrong with that.

HOWEVER, there is something very wrong with this 1988 article:

. . .which was apparently written in response to the question What if Malibu Stacy wrote glossy brochures for McNamara/Troy? With brute-force big-sister chattiness and the insinuating smirk of a true frenemy, the author makes irreversible surgery seem like shaving your pits—kind of a drag, but something most young ladies of a certain age might want to consider if they don’t want to be run out of their villages with flaming pitchforks. The article’s deep streak of lame should surprise exactly no one, since it comes from the same issue of ‘Teen Magazine that gave us this fashion spread on camouflaging “body flaws” with polyester parachutes.

For your first taste of what happens when you take the person in charge of writing Corey Hart profiles and put her on the Serious Life Issues beat, take a minute to parse this statement:

You almost have to feel sorry for this sentence. With its zippy triple-alliterations and bouncy rhythm, it’s practically begging for a prime spot in the lead paragraph.  Instead it’s buried in paragraph 4, and the intro is mucked up with bizarre statements like true beauty comes from within and the most important thing is that you learn to accept what you look like, which is clearly a lot of sentimental rot because everybody knows the actual most important thing is purchasing products that make your hair do this:

If you think this is bad, you should see Friday.

But what if Bold Hold alone can’t transform you into the kind of girl boomboxes are held aloft for? ‘Teen Magazine is here to assure you:

Okay, so you have to remember it’s 1988 and not only is elective plastic surgery no biggie, it’s pretty much the default for all right-thinking ladies under the age of 21. By July of that year, more and more teens were choosing to sneak in a little face-saving science before the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, just like more and more of them were choosing to pair pink with lime green and crimp their hair with Conair Fashion Plates.

She just had HER ENTIRE FACE replaced.

So the first thing the article cavalierly chirrups about is rhinoplasty. Not just because it’s “the number-one item teen girls ask for,” but also because—according to the author of this sneaky termite campaign to dismantle self-confidence—there is no such thing as an acceptable teenage nose:

The rest of this section is hijacked by a couple of windbag doctors with a bunch of boring facts and caveats, but it’s all white noise until you hit this gem:

I hope everyone absorbed the takeaway here. I mean, forget the “realistic expectations” crap; I’m talking about digging out the lighted makeup mirror and figuring out exactly where you fall on the “slightly pudgy” to “lie-telling Pinocchio” continuum. That way when you pull up to the drive-thru in your white Corvette to have a nick or two nipped from your nose, you can figure out in advance how much to tip the surgeon (and hopefully still have cash left over for milkshakes at the Peach Pit).

So okay, but what if you’re an “average-looking girl” with a severe and generalized mediocrity problem, like this Amy person in one of the article’s case studies? Amy presented with a serious and heartbreakingly common problem: “not much contour in her cheeks.” If this sounds familiar, ‘Teen Magazine is here to school you on your options:

That last parenthetical may seem a bit on the “unforgivably condescending” side, but again, keep in mind when this was written. In 1988, people were voluntarily watching Who’s the Boss?, listening to Johnny Hates Jazz, and pointing at invisible warts while wearing terrycloth headbands:

Teen girls who were products of this culture could not be relied upon to independently digest a word like craniofacial without some cute cheerleading. Most young ladies were shielded from the harsh realities of five-syllable words—unless they suffered the torment of being “average-looking” like Amy, in which case they learned the lingo of complex plastic surgery pretty darned fast.

Full disclosure re: Amy: Part of this article appears to have been deleted accidentally in the magazine production process, because the intro promised interviews with “great gals” who “couldn’t be more pleased with their results,” and this Amy is quite the downer. After her doctor went to all the trouble of sawing through her upper jawbone and taking bone grafts from her skull to build up her cheekbones, she had only this to say:

“I GUESS I CAN LIVE WITH THIS FACE?” Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but where I’m from, we don’t talk about face-saving science that way. Those cheekbones weren’t about to contour themselves, young lady!

Anyway, five paragraphs later is the article’s dramatic conclusion, bolstered by some armchair philosophizing that just might give you whiplash:

In other, less confusing words: if you’re silly enough to think your face is fit to be seen as is without the benefit of mosquito netting, how nice for you; if you don’t, then face-saving science will save the day; however, be advised that cute boys may like the very thing you despise about yourself and may not call you on your transparent phone if you go through with the surgery; on the other hand, you want to be pretty, right?

Oh, fine—if you want to be a puss about it, you might be able to make the most of your mug with a makeover. Turn to page 75.

The Tina Yothers look is still in, y’all:

P.S. So after I put up this post on the “Problem-Solving” fashion spread, a like-minded reader contacted me with some TRULY FANTASTIC teen-mag scans of her own. With her permission, I’ll share a couple of those with you soon. If you have your own horrific teen-pop-culture ephemera to share—or if you’d like to do a guest post on said horrors—hit me up at jclillisbooks AT gmail DOT com.