200 Pounds Beauty

The movie “200 Pounds Beauty” is about a girl named Hanna who acts as the voice for
a famous pop singer who lip syncs. After being treated badly for being overweight and
not fitting beauty norms, she undergoes cosmetic surgery to find happiness with Sang-
jun, their director who she’s in love with, and starts a signing career of her own.
The movie showed how much of an impact external beauty can have on the way people
treat each other, specifically in Korea. The pre-surgery Hanna was treated like she did
not matter and was used for her voice, while after surgery everyone were amazed by
her beauty and forgave anything she did. The scene where Hanna was convincing the
surgeon to operate on her showed that Koreans don’t change their appearance solely to
look better, but because otherwise no matter how good their other qualities are, they
won’t succeed in life. Hanna was an example of that, since she had the vocal talent, but
was working as the voice for a lip-syncer that fit the beauty standards. Also, the movie
showed that even though so many people undergo plastic surgery, it is almost a taboo
topic, and people hide the fact that they have gotten surgery, and natural beauty is
praised. The society pressures “ugliness” so much that even when Sang-jun liked the
pre-surgery Hanna, he pretended not to in front of Ammy. I found it interesting and
partially sad that, by undergoing surgery, Hanna not only tried to change her looks, but
also tried to completely get rid of her past, including her father, who she pretended not
to know. It was also amazing that achieving that beauty standard that society requires
was to such importance to her that she put aside all aspects of her life and had devoted
an entire year to drastically changing her appearance. In the scene where Hanna
publicly confesses going through surgery, the audience’s acceptance made me think
that they understood her, because they too went through changes because of society’s
pressure, but at the same time they individually would not pressure someone else to
undergo surgery because they know what feeling pressured to do so feels like.