Kang Mirae is no Julia Roberts.

At first, I had high hopes of this kdrama showing us how the Ugly Duckling blossomed after plastic surgery and transformed into Miss Pretty Woman or Miss Congeniality. But eight episodes in, I’m now pulling my hair in frustration that the heroine is still pretty much a wuss that she was pre-operation.

I’m convinced that Mirae’s greatest flaw was not her physical appearance but her social ineptness.

Take for instance the flashback to her years in middle school in Episode 1. Mirae recounted that back then, she temporarily achieved social acceptance by gaining top rank in class. But the ridicule and taunting began all over again when she was rejected by a classmate.

In my opinion, Mirae was certifiably nuts to confess her feelings without FIRST ascertaining the boy’s feelings for her. Where on earth did she get that chutzpah? That audacity? Any savvy teenager, regardless of beauty, would have tried to gauge whether the guy was the least bit interested in her BEFORE surprising him with a love declaration.

Ugh. This detestable scene reminded me of one of my most hated teen dramas, Playful Kiss/Mischievous Kiss/It Started With a Kiss, where the moronic girls gave the genius guys a love letter full of grammatical errors.

Social suicide, anyone?

Like these girls, Mirae totally lost her sense of self-preservation.  #sorrynotsorry. I could spare them little pity since they did not anticipate what could go wrong with a love confession and prepare for a rejection.

To me, Mirae’s confession was just as nonsensical as her encounter with that male college student who blurted that she was his ideal type and asked for her phone number. See? She was flabbergasted, right? Nobody in his or her right mind confesses outright without getting a good sense of the other person’s feeling. It’s burdensome to the other person.

However, that encounter with that random college student showed me that she hadn’t outgrown her social ineptness. Seeing her bewilderment and hearing her ridiculous reply, i.e., her phone didn’t have a phone number, it dawned on me that she hadn’t changed much since she was a bully-magnet in middle-school. She still didn’t know how to navigate the social scene.

But instead of being moved to pity, I was impatient with her social awkwardness. It grated on me that she could be so timid and witless. It didn’t seem possible that she graduated top of her class when she couldn’t even string a logical thought in her brain. What? Were all the grades based on written tests? There were no group projects or oral presentations? Does she have a speech phobia or a social anxiety disorder?

To me, her painful plastic surgery and her parents’ financial sacrifice seem futile and pointless.

The surgical procedure was meant to correct PHYSICAL problems (i.e., monolids, flat nose, chubby face) that caused her low esteem. But in my opinion, the fees spent on the plastic surgeon could have been better used on a THERAPIST who would help her with her MENTAL health instead.

Why?

Because making her pretty by the scalpel did NOT produce happiness for her.

Mirae still suffered from low esteem, anxiety, and social isolation after her operation. The surgeon had explain at length only the procedure and its possible complications. Not once did he discuss the limitations of the surgery to remedy real psychological issues. In my opinion, a therapist would have been beneficial for Mirae to recover her self-image moreso than a plastic surgeon. The right therapist could have helped Mirae build social skills, learn to read social cues, deal with her peers and improve self-esteem.

But unfortunately, plastic surgery is viewed as a quick fix in cases such as Mirae’s. For me, it was chilling to see all those posters of beautiful celebrities lining the subway walls on her way to her appointment with the plastic surgeon. The posters imposed a standard of female beauty because all the women shown in those ads looked alike. The posters reinforced the societal pressure to remedy non-standard appearances like Mirae’s with surgery in order to blend in with the rest.

That was why Mirae wanted to be “average” with her surgery. She wanted to look like the other beautiful women she met on the subways.

However, it backfired on her because after the surgery her face looked common. Yes, she was pretty in a homogenized way. It was naïve of Mirae not to realize that her plastic surgery was too obvious. She looked unmistakably like the tens, hundreds, thousands of women who had the identical cosmetic procedures done on them.

Look: if she could identify and enumerate the various surgical enhancements of women she met on the subway, then the students on campus, especially the female ones, could also identify and enumerate her plastic surgery too. She no longer looked natural, too. That was why her classmates didn’t at first believe that she was a freshman like them. They thought she looked older and more mature, an “unnie.” With all her facial reconstruction, she now resembled the rich “Gangnam unnies” satirized in Psy’s Gangnam Style.

When her classmates realized their unintentional gaffe, they tried to gloss over it by saying that she really so pretty and that “new students don’t look this skinny or pretty.”

Mi-Rae sensed the group’s awkward atmosphere and wondered whether she was being “ousted” when in reality, they were only trying to spare her feelings and pretend that her plastic surgery wasn’t obvious. They were being kind to her unnatural beauty.

In contrast to Mi-Rae, Soo-Ah was a natural beauty. She looked youthful and charming. Her friendliness (though self-serving) made her easily the most popular girl of her class. She beamed while she smiled whereas Mi-Rae projected a haughty look. Somebody really should remind Mirae to smile more often. Smiles are the most natural way to increase a person’s attraction…and they cost nothing.

But I understand that Mirae often appeared aloof and quiet because she was disconcerted and processing her thoughts and reactions. She had been so used to the barbs and insults when she was ugly, that she doubted the nuance or the intention of her newfound friends’ compliments.

Take for instance when her classmate Jung Boon told her, “Kang Mi Rae, I’m jealous of you. You have a pretty name and face. I should just keep on eating since that’s what I do best,” Mirae wondered frantically, “What do I say? What am I supposed to say?” Her response came out ludicrous and fake, “No, you’re prettier.”

Unlike her, Soo-Ah was pretty good at receiving compliments and downplaying or deflecting them playfully. She obviously was accustomed to hogging the limelight. And her biggest trial would be having the limelight stolen from her. Like all beauty queens, she’d be okay letting Mirae share and bask in her sunlight, but she wouldn’t take it kindly should Mirae dare to eclipse her.

This annoyed me that the writer was setting Soo-Ah up to be a typical two-faced, mean girl in the drama. In the same way I detest the poor-pitiful-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold trope, I find the rivalry between the ugly and the beautiful girls irritatingly sexist. The guys in the story don’t discriminate based on their looks, do they? The ugly and handsome guys (except for the introverted male lead) get along together in the story yet we have a story about beauty where beautiful girls are pitted against each other, and the most beautiful one of them all is a naturally conniving witch? 😂 Scripts can be written better.

Lastly, I found the title of this first episode, “I’m Pretty Starting From Today” ominous, rather than encouraging.

Yes, Kang Mirae had cosmetic surgery. Yes, she was now getting more compliments. Yes, she was accepted by more of her peers. Yes, she’d become pretty starting on her first day in college. But it was obvious that being pretty was going to be the LEAST of her worries and the START of her troubles. Her prettiness was only skin-deep and superficial. She certainly looked prettier after her plastic surgery but she acted like her old ugly self: hesitant, ungainly, insecure, timid.

You see, she still behaved like an outsider trying desperately to fit in with the “average” crowd. She still lacked self-esteem. Her beauty is plastic precisely because it isn’t organic. It didn’t come from within her. She hadn’t figured out the real source of her inner beauty.

She changed her appearance because she wanted to be liked and accepted. But as the next few episodes would show, the people who liked and accepted her BEFORE her plastic surgery – namely, her parents, her best friend, and Kyung Seok – were the same people who liked and accepted her AFTER the plastic surgery. They remained constant, regardless of her outward appearance, because they liked her for her unchangeable inner qualities.

For instance, her father recognized her by her voice. Her mother recognized her silent endurance of her pain. Her best friend recognized her silliness. Kyung Seok recognized her “happy” feet and her Pomelo scent. All these people could attest that there were ways, other than the obviously visual one, to recognize beauty.

Only when Kang Mirae discovers this truth for herself will she cease chasing other people’s standards of beauty and deluding herself that she needs to measure up to their ideals. But this kdrama is about her self-discovery, and becoming an average Gangnam Beauty is only the first step of her journey to find her true self. Of course, it’s going to be ironic that given her extensive facelift, she’ll realize belatedly that beauty means being confident and comfortable in one’s skin.