VENUS ENVY: HISTORICAL COSMETIC SURGERY

Le Monde En Tique

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Ouvrage 0-8018-5763-5 : VENUS ENVY: HISTORICAL COSMETIC SURGERY
The surprising history of cosmetic surgery -- and America's quest for physical perfection -- from the turn of the century to the present.
"Original, well-researched, and a pleasure to read. It constitutes an astute analysis of the modern commodification of the body and the role of the medical profession in such developments." -- Roy Porter, Times Higher Education Supplement
"An informative, often engaging account of the history of cosmetic surgery in the United States."--Parade Magazine
"[A] very meaty history of plastic surgery. The relevant race and gender issues are thoroughly worked over (one chapter title: 'The Michael Jackson Factor'), and there are enough horror stories about leached silicone and Homely Girl contests to make one permanently swear off the scalpel." -- Entertainment Weekly
"This book charts how millions have spent billions to enlarge or shrink body parts. Author Elizabeth Haiken has pitched a big tent. Plastic surgery embraces self-enhancement, prejudice, greed, submission and opportunity. This is about life in a democracy, where (for a price) any boy can be president and any girl can be Miss America."--San-Diego Union-Tribune
Face lifts, nose jobs, breast implants, liposuction, collagen injections... the body at the end of the twentieth century has become endlessly mutable and surgical alteration has become an accepted part of American culture. Today, corporeal re-engineering seemingly promises to make real the quintessential American dream of self-transformation. But do the prevalence and social acceptability of cosmetic surgery signify a surrender to the notion that physical difference really matters -- that appearance and success are, despite American ideals of equality, inextricably linked?
In Venus Envy, Elizabeth Haiken traces the quest for physical perfection through surgery from the turn of the century to the present. Drawing on a wide array of sources -- personal accounts, medical records, popular magazines, medical journals, and beauty guides -- Haiken reveals how our culture came to see cosmetic surgery as a panacea for both individual and societal problems. As Americans and their surgeons linked the significance of "normal" standards of beauty to social adjustment and economic success, they also linked "undesirable" physical characteristics to psychological conditions such as the "inferiority complex," for which cosmetic surgery appeared to offer a sure cure.
Venus Envy also explores the new meanings with which the era of plastic surgery endowed race, ethnicity, aging, and femininity -- from Fanny Brice's famous 1923 nose operation to Michael Jackson's race- and gender-bending transformation of the late 1980s; from stripper Carol Doda's silicone-enhanced breasts to the pectoral implants and penile enlargement techniques that tempt American men today.
As Americans and their surgeons have come to see cosmetic surgery as the most practical solution to an ever-increasing number of perceived problems, plastic surgery has become one of the largest and fastest growing medical specialties in the world. To patients, cosmetic surgery seemed to promise a more attractive appearance and a changed life. To doctors, it offered a lucrative and rewarding practice -- and a limitless supply of patients. But Haiken questions whether these "solutions" are not in some sense chimeras: by emphasizing the importance of appearance, cosmetic surgery raises serious concerns about how society views such intractable problems as aging, gender, and race -- and about how Americans view themselves.
Elizabeth Haiken is assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee.
HISTORY

Auteur : HAIKEN
Editeur : JOHNS HOPKINS
Nombre de pages : 288
Date de publication : 01 1998

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