What message did I get from the last scene? That regardless of how much you point out that plastic surgery may not be the solution to one’s unhappiness/discontent in life, there will always be people who would not understand.

Some people cannot see past the end their nose!

Thank you, Javabeans for this forum.

P.S. samsooki, as always you did not disappoint me. Well done! Congratulations, too, to catburt28 at comment 113 for your well-written, informative and convincing piece.

I personally found it easy to empathize with why the main character did what she did. She wanted to change to pursue her happiness. In this case, her happiness was in the form of achieving love(and/or success). I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. If she wants to pursue her happiness, then this is a perfectly valid decision(even if she wants to pursue it through plastic surgery).

I guess the main problem for me here is that I’m a little disturbed by the ending of the movie. It seems to say that…plastic surgery is the answer. It feels like it’s saying conform to the standard for beauty(thin, skinny, etc.) and you will be happy. That’s the part that disturbs me, that it seems like you won’t be happy unless you’re the skinniest(and in effect, the prettiest?…as well as the most plastic person ever).

I find that message to be super disturbing because there are so many role models out there that show us otherwise. And even though a lot of us watching the movie can distinguish between reality and fiction, it’s still affecting us in some way. We’re still seeing the message even if we’re not conscious of it, and to have people watch this movie and accept this message is just…insidious.

I’ve never been a fat woman so I can’t say it’s all true from experience – but I do have bigger friends & I’ve seen a few nasty things happening to them. And they fell in the ‘pleasantly plump’ category. NOT in the grossly obese category like Hanna at the beginning. So I can only imagine the bs a 200-lb woman would go through in a place like Korea where everyone is tiny.

I think the movie isn’t bad as much as it is sad. Because she sells out and buys into society around her. You are right, we should be looking at society. It’s interesting because in China right now, women are just starting to get with shaving.

For me, I can’t get into actors and actresses as much, I think, because so often, the media defines their identity – I mean… It is rare for them to say what they believe in film. I can get behind and look beyond looks for singers because top quality ones write what is in their hearts, what they are thinking about… and a rare handful talk about deep things in life.

I wonder why tho’ we are all so attracted to the beautiful?

Exactly. I don’t think we can blame the film – but we need to look behind it to a society that is incredibly looks focused – not just for women too. I remember vague Jang Geon-suk being called fat once… and I tutored 3-4 Korean families whilst living in Asia and they are very much about looking at externals. NA isn’t much better though.