It seems like there was a saying that went something like: marketing is the fine art of convincing a person that something is needed where it was never previously wanted. Convincing the need for a product requires proving that this product solves a customer problem - satisfies some deficiency. Have a spill? Wipe it up with Bounty paper towels. Need to be safe on your 10 mile commute to work? Drive a Hummer H2.

Too ugly for grade school? Rhinoplasty to the rescue.

Unfortunately, a lot of marketing - especially that which is directed toward young people - attempts to convince deficiency of a more personal nature. More benign campaigns ensure you that your breath and armpits are natural stink factories in need of mints and anti-perspirant. More shameless advertising can easily be found in nefarious teenager magazines which peddle body image obsession and popularity psychosis in order to sell clothes and makeup.

But well beyond shameless, past disturbing, over in the ballpark of disgusting, bordering criminal is the cosmetic surgery industry. I can accept that advertisers are smarmy, but doctors? Helping burn victims is one thing, but who is being served by productized surgical "enhancements"? How does one get through medical school and go on to sell dangerous body augmentations as if they were breath mints and hummers? What happened to "do no harm?"

Last evening I found an excellent parody of this body image defecit advertising. It's a short film created by the digital arts group Pleix. The film was produced in 2001 and, in retrospect, it predicts the sort of material we now get to see on television in the form of Nip/Tuck and MTV's I Want A Famous Face. It's comprised of 4 commercials selling do-it-yourself cosmetic surgery "Beauty Kits" for little girls.

Look pretty! Feel Beautiful!

I've attached the movie to this post in case there are bandwidth issues, but you can also retrieve the film and browse their other short films from Pleix's films page.

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