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cafebabe writes:

There's a line in the film The Wizard Of Oz which goes "Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown? Uh-huh." Technology isn't quite there yet but people travel abroad to have eye surgery for cosmetic reasons. The most high-profile case occurred quite recently:

Reality-TV star Tameka "Tiny" Harris "just wanted to do something different" when she traveled to Africa for a procedure that permanently changed her eye color from brown to light gray, she said.

"They are ice gray. That's the color I purchased," Harris, 39, told ABC News' Deborah Roberts in her first interview confirming the buzzed-about change.

Harris, the star of two reality shows who first gained fame as a member of the R&B group Xscape, traveled to Africa for the procedure because the operation is illegal in the United States.

People are complaining that she did to appear less Black and more Caucasian/Oriental but it appears to be a choice based on the frequency of wearing colored contact lens:

"I had been wearing colored contacts for a couple of years, and they were making my vision blurry," said Tiny. "A friend of mine mentioned that she had heard of a procedure where you could permanently change your eye color, and we looked into it. We researched it for a bit, but I was nervous because … it’s your eyes! But two years later, it came up again. I spoke to the doctors and to patients who’d had it. I learned that there was no downtime, that it only took about 15 minutes - plus it’s reversible. When I found out that you could reverse it, I was sold."

Many doctors strongly advise against the surgery which can cause permanent blindness or death.

Also in the news for looking less ethnic is Renée Zellweger. Personally, I think she looks greatly improved but her ancestry is an issue for other people:

Renee Zellweger hit the news headlines earlier this week, following some pretty drastic cosmetic surgery she had done to her face recently, and apparently, she did so to hide her Norwegian Sami/Kven heritage in order to look more "traditionally European."

That claim comes from a top professor of Finnish culture, Edward Dutton, from Oulu University in Finland, who says that Renee went under the knife to hide her ethnic roots.

According to Professor Dutton, "With a Swiss father and a mother who is part Kven and part Sami - ethnic minorities Indigenous to Norway, Finland and Sweden – Renee had a somewhat "eastern" face. I suspect Renee has had plastic surgery which makes her look less Sami, less Kven, and more stereotypically North European. She was so much more beautiful and interesting when she had the courage to be Sami and Kven."

While talking about Renee Zellweger's possible intentions for the surgery, Dutton compared her to none other than the King of Pop himself. "There seems little question that Michael Jackson underwent plastic surgery to make himself look more European, and Renee seems to have done exactly the same thing. How sad," he said.

The article has further information about ancestry and blepharoplasty to remove a style of eyelid believed to be an adaptation for cold climate.