Perhaps 10 years from now we'll be watching MTV's "I Want a Famous Baby," following hopeful parents as they genetically engineer their offspring to look like models and movie stars. If anyone tries it, surely there will be a network willing to document it.A few years ago, MTV debuted a show in which fans were made over in the image of their favorite singer and then re-created one of their idol's music videos. This year, the network unleashed, "I Want a Famous Face," documenting young adults as they undergo gruesome surgeries in order to resemble celebrities.It may be the fault of editing, but only one surgeon had any objections to the idea of patients wanting to spurn their own individuality to this degree. In a consultation with Mia, a Britney Spears impersonator hoping to buy bigger boobs to better fit her costumes, the doctor mentioned that "If you came in and said, 'Look, I want to look just like this breast on page 14,' it would raise some red flags for me."Parents, in their rare and brief appearances, are similarly uncritical and fail to address the self-esteem issues that are driving their offspring to discard their identities.The worst case is that of Mike and Matt, a pair of woefully untalented twins hoping that plastic surgery will make them look like Brad Pitt so they can begin acting careers. Rather than recognizing that the acting craft might require, as an acting coach suggests, practice and hard work, the brothers bank on their aesthetic reconstruction to build their careers. "After the surgery, we're going to take Hollywood by storm," they claim.The same attitude that a change in physical appearance will make all the difference guides the decision of Sha, an adorable blonde already attractive enough to have been featured in Playboy, to get ridiculously large breasts, a lip implant, and liposuction in order to get more work.Presumably as a token of social responsibility, the surgeries are edited for maximum gruesomeness. A slab of jiggling meat and fat is removed from a patient getting a full body lift, stitches ooze blood on a freshly stuffed breast, and the prodding of surgeon's tools is artificially sped up for gross-out effect.Some episodes also feature cautionary tales, grim reminders to viewers that not all procedures end happily. One girl's implants gave her rheumatoid arthritis. A young man chose his surgeon out of the yellow pages, and ended up with a nose worse than the one he began with.Jessica, a pre-operative transsexual, is the only participant who is having surgery to maker her body fit her identity as opposed to someone else's. Her desire to resemble Jennifer Lopez is secondary to her self-identification as a woman. She is the rare exception, as most of the patients on "I Want a Famous Face," would be far better served by consultations with psychiatrists than plastic surgeons.MTV is in the business of entertainment. While MTV surely plays a part in the glorification of celebrity that drives these shallow, insecure young adults to modify their bodies to resemble famous people, it's hard to blame the network for wanting to make money off of the phenomenon."I Want a Famous Face" is in many ways irresponsible. The show makes plastic surgery look simple, and the stories end on a happy note emphasizing how much better the participants look and feel and how much optimism they have for their careers.

It's not MTV's job to take these kids aside and tell them it's not the end of the world if they aren't perfect, but it would be nice if someone had.