All over the world, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker's observation about singer Fanny Brice's plastic surgery, people are cutting off their noses to spite their race.
They are doing it everywhere, but the front lines are probably in Beverly Hills. On any given weekday in the offices of Dr. Paul Nassif on Spalding Drive, men and women, teenagers to 50-year-olds, wait in a luxuriously carpeted and upholstered reception area. On a comfortable chair, a young African American woman in her 20s reads a book. An older Asian woman in a broad hat emerges from the consulting rooms. A Latina chats with the receptionist. The door to the outer hallway opens and in comes a perfect Hollywood blond in a lacy white blouse, white linen trousers, gold bracelets, diamonds on her fingers, a designer handbag hanging from her shoulder. An older white man leaving the office jokes with a nurse: "Now I'm ready for a weekend of golf." On a closed-circuit television in a corner, testimonials by former patients and video footage of procedures play to current and prospective clients.
The patients are ethnically diverse. What many have in common, of course, is a desire to appear more youthful. But page through the before-and-after album that lies on a waiting room table and you see the other trend.
In this office it's known as westernization.
Here is a 31-year-old Asian woman who "feels that her nose is too bulbous.
Procedure: westernization rhinoplasty. Comment: Notice the smoother, softer nose with a 'natural' appearance." Next, a 26-year-old African American male "desiring a 'westernization' rhinoplasty . . . he has an ethnic nose and wants it thinner and desires more projection. Comment: Notice the improved but not over-corrected profile with more projection and a slimmer nasal tip. His nostrils also were narrowed with a natural appearance." Over on this page, "a 25-year-old Middle Eastern male desiring removal of the hump on his nose."
While all this westernization is going on, the cautionary example of Michael Jackson remains on people's minds. Patients and doctors say he is often mentioned as they discuss plans for surgery. No one wants to make his mistakes; no one wants to turn into a monster of tragic racial confusion.
