Skin Deep seeks to understand both the personal and societal reasons these people, like millions of others, are driven to undergo these transformations. It is an extremely personal process that ultimately changes them for the rest of their lives. The series introduces us to many ordinary people who alter their lives significantly, including a nurse, a government clerk, a doctor, a high profile TV sportscaster, and many others. Cosmetic surgery, our key mode of physical transformation, alters our appearance, which then alters the way we see ourselves, creating an endless spiral. Millions of people have spent billions of dollars to enlarge, shrink, and otherwise alter their body parts.
Plastic surgery embraces self-enhancement, prejudice, greed, submission, and opportunity.
Most patients are female, Caucasian baby-boomers, but Skin Deep profiles both men and women as they seek to look younger, enhance workplace status, and generally change their bodies and their futures. Competition for the procedures has become so intense and the surgery so lucrative, that more doctors without specific surgical training are getting into the aesthetic surgery business. Skin Deep explores safety, motivation, cost and other issues surrounding plastic surgery. Skin Deep examines these and other timely issues by looking at the growing use of cosmetic surgery around the world. This program shows the facelift details.