Julie Chen / Plastic Surgery Admission / Was Racially Motivated ...

Well Ken, in your photo you look bored and disinterested, so can I recommend a plastic surgeon for you, too?



Honestly, it WAS a racist comment by Chen's boss, but then again, that's stupidity working at full throttle. For my own edification, I looked at the pics below the video, and IMO she looks better in the 'After' picture. Mind, she's all dolled up with the make-up and hairstyle, but I think she looks better. Did she also have a nose job?

I'm pretty sure, though, that Connie Chung never had plastic surgery. I always considered her very professional as well as attractive. Just my thoughts on all this.

I don't quite buy that, considering the full overhaul Chen underwent. It's not like she just had her eyes 'done.'

It's interesting to me that she addressed it at all, actually. I've long thought hers is one of the best examples of good plastic surgery I've seen - for as much work as she had I don't think she looks 'done.' However, people have been surprised more than once when something like it came up (in a bad/good celebrity work way) and I'd say how good I thought hers was, because they'd no idea she wasn't born with that face. Hence I thought she wasn't exactly into discussing it, though perhaps no one asked.

Good plastic surgery in that she was not left looking like a freak.

Bad plastic surgery in that part of the goal was to make her not look like a minority group based on the presumed bigotry of viewers.

^Yeah, that. Debating over which picture is more "attractive" seems to be rather missing the point. She shouldn't have had to get surgery to appear less "Asian." That's absurd and offensive, regardless of how successful the results were.

This makes me sad.

veinglory said:

Good plastic surgery in that she was not left looking like a freak.

Bad plastic surgery in that part of the goal was to make her not look like a minority group based on the presumed bigotry of viewers.

Click to expand...

I meant good specifically in that she had a ton of work done and yet it looks very natural - like that's the face she was born with. Not speaking to what it did or the ethnic overtones or anything but that I think (especially based on the people I've known who didn't realize it about her), if you don't know she'd had work, you wouldn't think she had. That's all, was qualifying good surgery as person looks natural as opposed to 'done.'

You know how I judge whether or not someone is relatable to me?

Are they human?

All right, good, we have plenty in common!

I dunno, Zoom. I do look for subjects that are relatable, like shared political ideology, common interests, stuff like that. It's just that color never enters into it. I don't find much to relate to in, say, Sean Hannity.

Julie Chen wouldn't be the first journalist/entertainer, whatever the hell she is to go under the knife to enhance her career prospects. If we were to kick to the curb everyone in the news, movies, television or music that had plastic surgery or some other appearance-enhancing procedure, we wouldn't have any to kick around.

That said, I'm not surprised Chen carved herself up to make herself more appealing to someone else's standards of beauty. I look at Beyonce's blonde mane and it's simply another extension of that same pathology.

Another thing to add is that plastic surgery was/is not limited to Asians or blacks whom the producers are suggesting become more 'white'--whatever the hell that means.

Hollywood often had its white stars and starlets undergo surgery to make them more appealing, either done under the studios' aegis or it was a decision made by the actors themselves. Granted, they were white so it ain't racism and it ain't quite the same thing, but it is in line with the idea that you have to look a certain way with a certain hairstyle or 'look' to appeal to the masses.

Ms. Chen can laugh now as she's made it and good for her. It's just a shame that someone had to judge her on her looks first as opposed to her professionalism.

This is very sad that she felt she had to change herself in order to be successful.

It goes on in the Black community as well. The skin bleaching is obvious for certain celebs and I won't speak on Lil Kim as doing so makes me teary eyed.

Kitty27 said:

This is very sad that she felt she had to change herself in order to be successful.

It goes on in the Black community as well. The skin bleaching is obvious for certain celebs and I won't speak on Lil Kim as doing so makes me teary eyed.

Click to expand...

As someone else pointed out though, this goes on with lots of people in the entertainment industry, regardless of race.

There's a little scene in the movie Notting Hill in which Julia Roberts (playing basically Julia Roberts, she's meant to be a world-famous movie star) is playing a game of saddest tale at a dinner party with all 'regular' people. They dismiss her, as see above movie star, when she starts saying she's been on a diet every day for a decade, underwent two operations (points to her nose and chin) to get her looking like that, etc., and someday her looks will go regardless and people will discover she's not a very good actor and she'll fade into obscurity. It's a movie but the point is that even the celebrities people think of as one thing are working and somewhat engineered to be perceived that way.

Which is not to say that there isn't racism too, obviously, and different expectations and standards of beauty and etc, that people are pretty much forced to meet, but it's more universal than people think about, I think.

As to Lil Kim, I agree what she's done to herself is sad but I don't know that it has anything to do with anything but her own psychological issues. There are people not in the entertainment industry who do that sort of thing too. Jocelyn Wildenstein isn't a singer but could, at this point, be Lil Kim's mother, if judging relation by looks.