18
EXTREME MAKEOVERS: CRITIQUING COSMETIC CULTURES
One Sunday in February, 1993, Law & Order: Criminal Intent introduced an episode that centred on botox treatments. The crime of the week featured a woman, found dead in her bathtub, with a blistered forehead (indicating a recent botox treatment). As the coroner determines the cause of death, she explains how the woman died from “thirty vials [of botox] jammed into her neck”; the injection paralyzed her, and facilitated her drowning. At this point, the coroner wryly comments: “Death by botox: live slow, die old, leave a good-lookin’ corpse.” As they track down the murderer, Detectives Goren and Eames attend a botox party—relatively common events, now, which feature alcohol, music, and, of course, botox treatments—and arrest the cosmetologist who runs the party. When he exclaims: “But it’s only botox,” Goren sagely reminds him: “This stuff was derived from something developed for germ warfare in the ’50s. A jury might not see it that way.” The plot concludes with the apprehension of the daughter, who uses botox for migraine relief, and who had begged the drug from the sympathetic cosmetologist.
This particular episode is significant for a number of reasons. As a highly-rated television show, the programme is watched widely on both sides of the Atlantic, and thus influences the ways in which the public views botox. And, indeed, there are consequential undercurrents in the episode to which I want to draw attention. First, the construction of botox treatments largely is figured as frivolous: the procedure comprises a dangerous undertaking, one in which women (especially wealthy women) engage. Second, botox itself is suspect, since it involves “something from germ warfare”--at least according to Detective Goren, the Sherlock Holmes figure of the programme, who clearly knows more than anyone else about the new biotechnological technique. His sidekick, Eames, goes along with his assessment, seemingly sharing his view that botox users are somewhat addled.
The Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode suggests that, despite all the assurances of plastic surgeons, dermatologists, and happy customers, botox is not as harmless as it is presented. And while this may well be the case, it is easy, and not especially productive, simply to mock a procedure that many people (and not just women) desire. Indeed, plastic surgery, in any of its cosmetic forms, is often mocked, and often mocked, as in the case above, at the expense of women.
As Mary Thompson asks, in an article on silicone breast implants: “What is a feminist politics of plastic surgery?” (273), or, to extend her question--of cosmetic biotechnological procedures? Citing Anne Balsamo’s book, Technologies of the Gendered Body, Thompson contends that Balsamo offers the potential of a new means of critique, when she notes:
I am reluctant to accept as a simple and obvious conclusion that cosmetic surgery is simply one more site where women are passively victimized. . . . Like women who get pierced-nose rings, tattoos, and hair sculptures, women who elect cosmetic surgery could be seen to be using their bodies as a vehicle for staging cultural identities. (78; qtd. in Thompson 275)
Building upon Balsamo’s admission, Thompson argues that this work
offers a useful lens for considering the discourses of the body, gender, and identity in the context of postmodern technologies. Her work suggests compellingly that feminists cannot uncritically dismiss or embrace new technologies like breast implants; rather, her work enables feminists to consider new technologies as discursive sites for the deployment of power. (274)
Do biotechnological cosmetic treatments involve a process of victimization, a site for the deployment of power, or both? These questions underpin the following pages, for, using Thompson and Balsamo’s suggestions as a starting point, I want to explore the various technologies that have been and are being used to augment the body’s appearance—while trying not to fall into the trap of merely dismissing women’s concerns for their appearance as “trivial.”
Although the botox bonanza is new, the search for youth (or its fountain), as well as the hunt for new and improved beautification methods is hardly unique to the contemporary era; on the contrary, they are virtually as old as written history. The “fashion of beauty,” like other aspects of fashion, has changed dramatically over the years. In ancient Egypt, Cleopatra apparently bathed in milk and ground pearls for a perfect complexion, while the sixteenth-century Elisabeth Bathory preferred blood (especially that of young virgins) for her toilette. Queen Elizabeth I wore extremely heavy makeup and a wig to hide her smallpox scars, sparking new makeup trends amongst her contemporaries (Tucker 14). The eighteenth century witnessed the application of beauty mark patches, in addition to the use of a facial whitening agent, “composed of carbonate, hydroxide, and lead oxide. These agents, cumulatively stored in the body with each use, were responsible for numerous physical problems and resulted in some cases in muscle paralysis or death” (Boyd [1]). By the nineteenth century (perhaps in response to the prevalence of tuberculosis), lips were reddened through the use of mercuric sulfide, and belladonna used to make eyes sparkle (feverishly?) (Boyd [1]). Clearly, youth, beauty, and their accoutrements have been coveted for centuries.
At the fin de siècle, new technologies enabled different approaches to age and beauty. The Steinach glandular operations, for example, performed on such luminaries as William Butler Yeats (Abrams 2344), were essentially vasectomies (in women, they took the form of x-ray irradiation of the ovaries [Sengoopta 1]). The reasoning behind the surgeries lay in Eugen Steinach’s belief that “closing off the passage of semen out of the testicles, [and] absorbing it instead into the body . . . [would] supposedly increase energy and retain youth” (9).
Certainly, Yeats was not alone in his desire to try Steinach’s vasectomy: Gertrude Atherton, and even Freud (in search of a cancer cure) both chose to undergo the procedure (Sengoopta 1). Indeed, so popular was the technique that Steinach became “a household word for a while; his very name became a verb in the 1920s: ‘people did not simply have the Steinach operation, they were ‘Steinached’” (Sengoopta 2). Accordingly, “more than a thousand men, most of them in America, received testicular grafts from humans, sheep, monkeys, goats, and deer for the treatment of a range of disorders, from the debility of old age to schizophrenia” (Sengoopta 5).
As the twentieth century advanced, so did its technology, effecting all number of beautification measures. Plastic surgery, as a profession, began with the treatment of wounded soldiers, although it was rapidly applied to facial enhancement, giving rise to the popularity of rhinoplasty—particularly, as Sander Gilman argues in The Jew’s Body, among Jewish women wanting to appear more gentile (184-93). At mid-century, the new sophistication of plastic surgery meant that cosmetic procedures were more available than ever before; plastic surgeons found a new market amongst middle-class women, who found it easier to alter their own faces than to alter the cultural norms and expectations surrounding aging. In doing so, the two groups “became both producers and products of the modern ‘culture of narcissism’” that is “still in place today” (Haiken 136).
Misogynistic cultural forces contributed to women’s search for youth and beauty. Surgeon John Conley actually charged women with being the instruments of their own destruction. In 1968, he wrote:
The constantly enforced and exaggerated smile in vogue today is a major offender in causing wrinkles about the commissures of the mouth, the nasolabial fold and the eyes. . . . This habit is so deeply ingrained in some persons that it is not possible for them to order a dozen bananas at the local grocery store without staggering the clerk with a Hollywood smile. This is certainly conducive to the production of wrinkles at an early age.
(qtd. in Haiken, 151)
As Elizabeth Haiken succinctly concludes: “Ironically, women learned, it was femininity itself that caused aging” (151). And, undoubtedly, the pressure was on to stay young: in 1956, Lily Daché exhorted her Glamour Book readers: “all you have to do is stretch out your hand to receive the magic bounty of glamour that modern science has prepared for you” (qtd. in Haiken 145). Of course, modern science’s bounty is not always magic, and daily talk shows are filled with women whose procedures have gone awry—with devastating results.
Differences in perceptions of biotechnological treatments are not insignificant, either, nor are they ungendered. Laser eye surgery (for example) is a common practice for football players, airplane pilots, and numerous other (male) athletes. Although people may cringe at the thought of eye surgery, few dismiss it as a silly or impractical aesthetic procedure. Yet, botox, as the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode suggests, is a harder sell.
Undoubtedly, botox is a peculiar form of treatment, utilizing, as it does, a bacteria that has been called “the most toxic substance known to science” (Regis 68). But, placed in context with other current beautification measures, it begins to seem somewhat less toxic. The “rejuvenating” procedures presently available on the market bring to mind those treatments undertaken by youth-seekers at the fin de siècle. As a result, collagen and fat implants, dermabrasion, and laser peels, all bare scrutiny before turning to botox.
Collagen treatments have become a popular from of “anti-aging,” largely because they are non-surgical procedures that can be performed in a doctor’s office. When the FDA and Health Canada approved collagen therapy in the 1980s, the substance consisted of a protein extracted from cow skin, which was then injected into a patient’s face. Acting as a “filler,” collagen can reduce wrinkles, smile lines, crow’s feet, plump up lips, and so on. Bovine-based collagen, however, can produce “immunologically related adverse events” (“Summary”), as well as abscesses, visual loss, a reactivation of latent herpes simplex infection, and necrosis (leading to scarring and changes in skin pigmentation) (“Guidelines”). One of the major drawbacks of collagen is that it “can be felt with palpitation” (“Guidelines”), and is eventually absorbed into the skin, requiring that shots be repeated regularly for similar results. The long-term effects of collagen are unknown.
The FDA describes: “Alternative therapies for dermal soft tissue augmentation [which] include . . . autologous fat transfer, and cadaveric-based products” (“Summary”). While information is difficult to find on what specific cadaveric-based products are being used, Time magazine reported in May 19, 2003 that Cymetra, which is used to fill deep wrinkles, is one of the culprits, consisting of “ground-up human skin” (Kher 43). The article observes:
Perhaps the creepiest substance being used to smooth wrinkles is Cymetra—a gel made from the skin of human cadavers. The manufacturer claims that Cymetra harnesses the body’s own skin-building machinery to fill its wrinkles. (“Beyond” 43)
Synthetic bone material (“Radiance”) is also being utilized as a deep-wrinkle filler (Kher 43).
Less gruesome than “cadaveric-based products” are human fat implants, or lyposculpturing. A popular procedure, lyposculpturing involves removing fat from patients’ bodies (usually from hips or thighs), and then injecting it into their faces. Obviously, immunological issues do not apply to fat transplants, but “because of its bulky nature,” fat is “more difficult to use in finer wrinkle lines” (“Collagen”). Like collagen, fat is also reabsorbed into the body, and the procedure must be repeated. One panel of doctors in Canada, who met in 1997, commented: “Repeat injections are usually necessary. . . . [Often a clinic] stores excess fat cells in the deep freeze. ‘Fatcicles’ are thawed before a patient comes in for a tune-up” (“Doctors). As with collagen treatments, fat reabsorption is not uniform, so as the wrinkles resurface, so might lumps and bumps.[1]
One is reminded of Goldie Hawn’s overly-collegened lips in the First Wives’ Club, lips that make it near impossible for her to smoke, and even render speech difficult. This is an extreme case, to be sure, but it is not the only dramatization of such beautification measures. Samantha, in one Sex and the City episode, starts to feel old, and opts to try fat implants. While she is delighted with the ability to eat whatever she wants, since the fat is being removed from her hips, and she likes the facial results, when her surgeon indicates how many other aspects of her body need work, Samantha, always proud of her body beautiful, is horrified, and decides to forego other procedures, at least in this episode (“Freak”).
Dermabrasion, sometimes called “skin planing,” is a curious practice involving a high-speed wheel, similar to a rotary sander using fine-grained sandpaper, which is used to abrade the skin (Begoun 217). It smooths the face, and is “recommended” for people with severe sun damage or pock-marked skin. Unfortunately, scarring and permanent pigment changes are not uncommon (“Cosmetic”).
Alternatively, chemical peels involve the application of an acidic solution that causes upper layers of the skin to peel off, along with pigmentation marks. The so-called “lunchtime peel” (“Superficial”) consists of “an alpha hydroxi acid solution . . . painted on the face and left on for a number of minutes. Skin will feel warm and prickly as the solution eats away at dead skin cells. Patients will experience temporary redness and skin flaking” (“Doctors”). There are also “stronger peels” available, which require “five to seven days of downtime, during which time skin will redden and crust before it heals” (“Doctors). After the dead skin is “eaten away.” the underlayers come to the surface, presumably with a “smoother, fresher look” (“Doctors”). While the long-term effects of chemical peels are unknown, in another episode of Sex and the City, Samantha chooses to refresh her skin with a chemical peel for Carrie’s book-launch party. Unfortunately, her skin takes longer than expected to heal, and her red face literally illuminates the party (“One”).