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Troughout history, certain members of nearly allcultures have deliberately altered their body'snatural appearance. Padaund women use rings toelongate their necks, Victorians constricted their waistswith corsets, and other cultures have practiced footbinding. When we look closely at each activity, we quicklyuncover the junction of ideology of beauty held

,< by members of these societies and thetechnology available to achieve that ideal.Today, we live in a time when medicinecan cure the body and also reshape it.Hence, many people usebiomedicali,\ I imeans, such assteroids andt ! >a hormones to, altertheir-lItix~ f t;:At: J - X bodies.

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Additionally, cosmetic surgery isbecoming increasingly available andaffordable to people of all ages, includiteenagers. According tojournalistAlissQuart (2003), "Teenagers now alter thebodies extremely and proudly' (p. 115)She reports, from 2000 to 2001, thenumber of cosmetic surgeries on teensages 18 and under rose nearly 22%.

In this article we explore the growinpopularity of cosmetic surgery. Our wois inspired and informed by many of tharticles contained in the March 2003 isofArtEducation, which encourage arteducators to address visual culture(Villeneuve, 2003). Specifically, we adoan instructional approach to our subjeas advocated by Karen Keifer-Boyd, whrecommends we begin with what ismeaningful in our lives today and thenlook for representations of those issuevisual culture (Keifer-Boyd, Amburgy, aKnight, 2003, p. 48). We draw examplesfrom reality television, advertising,dolls, and films made for childrea Next, we examine the work of

Orlan, aperformance artist whoi324 repeatedly underwent cosmetic

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in a quest to challenge dominantof beauty. By discussingfrom both popular culture andarts, we hope to achieve the goals ofeducation as posited byArthurEflandwho writes that art educationprovide "the freedom to exploreforms of visual culture to enableto understand social and culturalaffecting their lives." (p. 250).

People become dissatisfiedwith their appearancewhen they perceive adiscrepancy between theiractual appearance and anideal, whether that ideal isthat of a doctor, celebrity,or a oy manufacturer.

The Construction of Beautyin Visual CultureMyths and beliefs about beauty aredeeply embedded in ou r culture and aretransmitted from early childhood onward.Consider how fairy tales, movies made forchildren, and dolls reinforce the notionthat beauty is a prerequisite forhappiness. T'raditionally, the hero orheroine is portrayed as young, beautiful,and white while the villain is depicted asold, ugly, and dark One such example isDisney'sLittleMermaid1989), ananimated version of the Hans ChristianAndersen fairy tale aboutAriel, amermaid who has fallen in love with thehandsome prince, Eric.' Ariel makes adeal with Ursula, a squid, to trade herexquisite voice for a pair of legs in orderto pursue Eric. Henry Giroux (1998), along-time critic of the Disney corporation,points out that Ursula, the "large, oozing,black and purple squid in theLittlegushes with evil an d irony"while the mermaid Ariel appears to be"modeled after a slightly anorexicBarbiedoll" (p. 58). Although there are

exceptions, generally in these stories,only a beautiful princess and her princelive happily ever after.

While many dolls, such as BratzandAmerican Girls,ma y communicatestandards of beauty to the children wh oplay with them, critics who want tocomment on cosmetic surgery most oftencite Barbie, Mattel's bestselling doll. Inone such instance, Cindy Jackson, anAmerican talk show celebrity, had morethan 20 surgical procedures in an attemptto resemble Barbie (Goodall, 1999). Muchhas been w ritten about the Barbie doll,which according to Shirley Steinberg(1998) "celebrates whiteness-blondwhiteness in particular-as a standard forfeminine beauty" (p.217). Susan JaneGilman (2000), reflecting on her ownchildhood experiences of playing withBarbie, writes, 'We urban, Jewish, black,Asian and Latina girls began to realizeslowly and painfully that if you didn't looklike Barbie, you didn't fit in.... You wereless beautiful, less valuable, less worthy"(p.17). Gilman's comments are particu-larly apt when we consider the history ofcosmetic surgery.

Sander Gilman (1999), in his book,Making theBodyBeautiful.A CulturalHistornj ofAesthetic Surgeny, explainsthat the growth of cosmetic surgerycoincided with the spread of so-calledrace science that linked one's physicalappearance to one's temperament,character, and intelligence. For example,those considered racially inferior to theEnglish middle class, such as the Irish,Welsh, and the lower classes, werethought to have protruding jaws. Men ofintelligence were considered to be thosewith less prominentjaws. Some cosmeticsurgeons now consider the face ofCatherine Zeta-Jones, a Welsh actress, asthe representation of ideal beauty. Earlyscientists also believed that physical andmental illness, prostitution, and signs ofcriminal behavior were thoughtto beperceptible on the exterior of the body asa symbolic reflection of one's inner state.Early cosmetic surgery held the promiseof curing one's inner condition by trans-forming one's outer appearance.

Today, advertisements frequently carrythe suggestion that cosmetic surgery willenhance self-esteem and improve one'squality of life (Sarwer &Crerand, 2004).These ads appear on television,billboards, and in magazines, whereyoung beautiful models are frequentlyused to depict po stoperative results. Priorto 1982, the American MedicalAssociation prohibited all advertising formedical services (Sullivan, 2001). TheSupreme Court over turned this rulingand paved the way for cosmetic surgeonsto actively solicit customers. Generally,advertisements for cosmetic surgerydiffer from other medical ad s in that theyoften resemble ads typically found infashion and beauty magazines.

Deborah Sullivan (2001) regardswomen's magazines as one of he mostimportant sources of information aboutcosmetic surgery. She examined 171magazine articles about cosmetic surgeryfrom 1985 to 1995 to determine howmagazines participate in the culturalconstruction of appearance. Sullivan(2001) found that, "Articles aboutcosmetic surgery in women's magazinesprovide readers an opportunity to learnphysicians' ideology about the problem-atic nature of body parts that fall short ofthe ideal" (p. 156).

The many makeover-based realityshows have, in part, contributed to thedemand for cosmetic surgery. In 2003, theABC television show, ExtremeMakeovers, was the second highest ratedprogram for adults under 50 (Sarwer andCrerand, 2004). Another example, TheSwan, featured 18 women who alldescribed themselves as "ugly ducklings."In this show each woman was given anindividualized team, which consisted of apersonal trainer, a therapist, a dentist, anda surgeon, to help her transform into abeautiful person. During the final episode,one woman was crowned the "lUltimateSwan."

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Through the use of "before"and "after" images, the mediaattempts to provide scientificevidence that surgery has notonly improved appearance,but has provided happiness.Students can be led throughdiscussions to see that "beforeand after" images, like othervisual images, are inneed ofin+nrn rattr.+,;,

Fo r ayounger audience, teenagers Mikeand Matt Schlepp, starred inI Want aFamousFace, n MTV cosmetic-surgeryreality show. The M TV crew followedMike and Matt through two months ofcountless surgeries where they spent$37,000 of their own money to look likeBradPitt. The Schlepps, as well as thewinners of The Swan andExtremeMakeoverwere laterfeatured on talkshows such as Oprah,and Dr. Phil.Television, like magazines and children'stoys and movies, provides visualexamples of beautiful individuals. Peoplebecome dissatisfied with their appear-ance when they perceive a discrepancybetween their actual appearance and anideal, whether that ideal is that of adoctor, celebrity, or a toy manufacturer.

Cosmetic surgery involves aestheticjudgments, and when we closely inspectthosejudgments, we can see thatstandards of beauty are largely culturallydetermined. The artist Orlan, whom wediscuss in the next section, critiquesdominant norms of beauty. HerReincarnationofSt-Orlanspecificallycomments on current cosmetic surgerypractices.Challenging DominantStandards of Beauty Throughthe Art of Orlan

The French artist Orlan is regarded asone of the more important artists of thelate 20th century. She uses her face as herprimary medium and cosmetic surgery as4,,'{ her sculpting method. On May 30th,

1987-her 40th birthday-Orlanembarked upon a projectthat married cosmetic- surgerywithperformance! - - t )art TheReincarnationofSt-Orlan,which entailednine separate operations,, y involved re-sculpting Orlan's face

'-.>. F /according to ideals of female0 :iLX'31, beauty established by male artists( ,r throughout history. Orlan first created a'+ 'com ter-generated self-portrait based

\ 0.90 on featus taken from women infam usarlworks.Her forehead, for-DY/ < example, wastakenfromDaVinci's

ts't7: 3oMoaiaherchin from Botticelli's

Venus, and her mouth from Boucher'sEuropa (Ince, 2000, p. 6) . Orlan thenturned to cosmetic surgery to sculpt herface to match the computer-generatedimage.Orlan's art is not the completedoperation, butrather the process of theoperation, during which she remainedfully conscious and in communicationwith her remote audience of galleryvisitors via satellite (Goodall, 1999). Orlatalked animatedly to her audience or readto them from texts chosen to serve ascommentaries on whatis takingplace.One key text read by Orlan during herperformance was from Lacanian psycho-analyst Eug6nie Lemoine-Luccioni's book

(1983),LaRobe (T7eDress).Lemoine-Luccioni, who devotes a chapter toOrlan's early performances, writes poeti-cally about the discrepancy between theway in which one appears versus one'sown self-perception. She states, 'Skin isdeceptive ... I have black skin, butI am aWhite person; the skin of a woman bu tIam a man. Inever have the skin ofwhatI am" (Lemoine-Luccioni, 1983, p. 95 ,translation). Although Orlan's firstperformances were concerned with idealof Western beauty, the seventh, eighth,and ninth operations involved placingimplants into her upper cheeks and thesides of her forehead to give the impres-sion of budding horns (Goodall, 1999).After the seventh operation, Orlandisplayed 41 self-portraits consisting ofphotographs taken on the day the surgerywas performed, and on each subsequentday after until the healing process wascomplete (Moos, 1996).

Orlan's work has been sensationalizedby the media, and critics often write thatshe is uncritically accepting sociallyimposed ideals of beauty by usingcosmetic surgery to become the 'idealwoman" (Hirschhom, 1996, p. 117).Moreover, according to Ince (2000),"Orlan has been called a publicity freakand a surgeryjunkie, and had her mentalequilibrium repeatedly called intoquestion" (p. 45). Others hail her work asa radical feminist critique of beautypractices. Anthony Shelton (1996), forexample, writes that Orlan's goal is to

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women from cosmetic surgery byits graphic and horrible side (p.Orlan, however, states, "My work isa stand against cosmetic surgery, bu tstandards of beauty, against

e dictates of a dominant ideology thatitself more and more on theflesh" (Brand, 2000, p.293).(1997) posits that for Orlan,is a way fo r women tocontrol over their bodies, but sheOrlan's intention was neverto reflect the surgical experiences"ordinary" women (p. 176). Davisin-depth interviews withha d or planned to haveand found that thedid not have surgery to becomebeautiful. Davis writes, "Cosmeticwas an intervention in identity.enabled them to reduce the distanceinternal and external so thatcould see them as they saw(p. 175). Others, such asWolf (1991), are not as optimisticwomen's motivation to haveShe posits thatwomen areto have cosmetic surgery into obtain the ideals promoted by thefashion industry and itscampaigns. Moreover, whilethan men have cosmeticthe number of men havingis increasing (Sarw er & Crerand,

Technology has given us safer, lesssurgical procedures, and adver-has increased media awarenessthose procedures. We area greater willingness of peoplehave surgery to enhance their appear-reality as well as on reality televi-

There is no consensus on theof enhancing the body. Someit, while others celebrate it Wey hold strong opinions, but like Keifer-(2003) we believe ou r role as artis to guide students to constructown meanings by criticallyhow their immediate concernse represented by others, particularlyass media and popular culture,and contemporary art.

Reconstructing Notions ofBeauty in the Art ClassroomArt educators Charles Garoian andYvonne Gaudelius (2001) argue thatteachers can use the work of Orlan as a

critical metaphor to question theaesthetic impact of technology and tocritique the discourse that normalizescosmetic surgery. They write, 'Therigorous documentation of her surgeriesand her performances of canonical'beauty' function technologically toenable us to question various ways inwhich the body makes and carriesmeaning" (p. 342). Orlan acknowledgesthe ways in which ou r choices aboutappearance are social and historical(Pitts, 2003) and may share commonground with teenagers who are exploringand experimenting with their identitythrough fashion, tattooing, and piercing.Admittedly, Orlan's work is provocativeand not all teachers will be comfortablediscussing her work. However, discus-sions around Orlan's art can addressquestions raised by Peg Zeglin Brand(2000), in the introduction to her book,BeautyMatters.She asks, "What is beautyand how does it operate within thecontext of our particular culture? Whatare the ideals of feminine beauty and arethey relevant to portraying beauty in art?"(p.4).

Teachers can help students carefullyexamine "before and after" images usedin cosmetic surgery and consider howthese images rely on "photographictruth." Sturken and Cartwright's (2001)book, Practice fLooking:AnIntroduction o Visual Culture, s particu-larly helpful to teachers. Their work canenable teachers to lead discussions on therole these photographs play as scientificevidence. Sturken and Cartwright (2001)write, "The photographic image ha s oftenbeen seen as an entity stripped of inten-tionality, through which the truth can betold without mediation or subjectivedistortion" (p. 280). As viewers, we areapt to accept an image as reality, since asSturken and Cartwright assert, "Scientificimagery often comes to us with confidentauthority behind it ... we often assume itrepresents objective knowledge" (p. 279).Through the use of "before" and "after"

images, the media attempts to providescientific evidence that surgery has notonly improved appearance, but has'provided happiness. Students can be ledthrough discussions to see that "beforeand after" images, like other visualimages, are in need of nterpretation.

According to Barrett (2003), "If themessages carried by visual culture are no tinterpreted, we will be unwittinglybuying, wearing, promoting, an dotherwise consuming opinions withwhich we may or may not agree" (p. 12).Advertisements fo r cosmetic surgeryimages carry ideology, but may appearneutral. We asked students enrolled in acourse on visual culture to collect anddiscuss ad s for cosmetic surgery. Using avariety of ads, students pointed ou t thatreproductions showing people prior tosurgery were dimly lit, whereas "after"images were brighter. Others noted that"after" images showed people with betterposture and with smiling faces. Onestudent located an ad in which a womanof color was show n with lighter skin afterher surgery, even though the ad was for aliposuction procedure. We also viewedand discussed how art and aestheticswere used to advertise cosmetic surgery.A number of ads, like Orlan, appropriatedimages from Renaissance paintings, suchas Botticelli's Venus. Elevate,a magazinedevoted entirely to cosmetic enhance-ment, proved to be good source forimages that demonstrate the symbioticrelationship between art and cosmeticsurgery.

Sturken and Cartwright remind us thatall ads are about transformation in thatthey are designed to offer people who arein some w ay dissatisfied with a productthat will alleviate their dissatisfaction.According to Sturken and Cartwright(2001), ad s offer "figures of glamour thatconsumers can envy and wish to emulate,people who are presented as alreadytransformed, bodies that appear perfectand ye t somehow attainable" (p.213).Orlan's work is in direct contrast to the"before-and-after" images of people whohave undergone cosmetic surgery used sopervasively by media Orlan's photo-graphs of her bruised and swollen post-operative face highlight the process of

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cosmetic surgery and not its end resulLWhen examining advertisements, televi-sion, or the work of Orlan, students canconsider ways in which changing one'sappearance changes one's identity.'Where is your identity located? Is itvisible or invisible?"With younger students, we can examinenotions of beauty prevalent in popularculture, startng with fairytales. Manycosmetic surgery based reality shows areupdated versions of fairy tales that offermagical and instant transformation.Books such as Robert Munsch's (1980)

ThePaperBagPrincessprovide an alter-native to the typical tale. Munsch's bookbegins with the usual tale of Elizabeth, "abeautiful princess, who lived in a castle,had expensive princess clothes, and wasgoing to marry a prince named Ronald"(p. 2). Her plans are changed after adragon smashes her castle, bums he rclothes, and carries off Prince Ronald. InMunsch's tale, however, itis Elizabethwho cleverly outsmarts the dragon andrescues Ronald. When the prince rejectsElizabeth because of her dirty clothes andmessy hair, she leaves him, dancing offinto the sunset, joyfully and alone. Thefilm, S/trek (2003), also parodies tradi-tional fairy tales. Stories such as thisinform students that women should notfeel that the only quality they have to offeris their appearance, or that it should bethe primary means through with they willbe evaluated by others.Conclusion

We echo Orlan and do not take a standagainst cosmetic surgery. We wish to helpstudents consider how their notionsabout beauty are socially constructed andtoprovide them with tools for promotingthe respect and appreciation of innerqualities an d individual strengths. We areaware, however, that for those studentswho are teased unmercifully by class-mates, cosmetic surgery holds greatpromise to end their suffering. We also donotwant to alienate students for theirchoice to elect to have cosmetic surgery.Perhaps, in the near future, cosmeticsurgery will be considered as common as

cutting or dying one's hair or wearingmake-up. On the other hand, it may beregarded with contempt, in the samemanner as foot binding. Regardless, ou rintent is to help students criticallyexanine the messages put forth bypopular culture, as well as the fine arts,and to make informed choices to acceptor reject those messages.LorrieBlairs associateprofessor ntheDepartmentofArtEducation,ConcordiaUniversity,MontreaLE-mail:1blair@vax2.concordia.caMayaShalmon is a graduate tudentatConcordia n CreativeArtsTherapies.E-mail:mayashalmon@yahoo. aREFERENCESBarrett, T. 2003). Interpreting visual culture.Art Education56(2), C-12.Brand, P.Z. (2000). Beauty matters.Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Davis, K (1997). 'My body is my art': Cosmeticsurgery as feminist utopia? In K.Davis(Ed.)Embodied practices:Feminist

perspectiveson twe body (pp. 169-181).London: Sage Publications.Efland, A (2004). The entwined nature of theaesthetic: Adiscourse on visual culture.Studies inArtEducation,45(3),234-251.Garoian, C.&Gaudelius, Y. 2001). Cyborgpedagogy: Performing resistance in thedigital age. Studies inArt Education,42(4),333-347.Gilman, S.J. (2000). Klaus Barbie and otherdolls I'd like to see. In Ophira Edut (Ed.).Body Outlaws. New York: Seal Press.Gilman, S. (1999).Making the body beautifuLA culturalhistory of aestheticsurgery.New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Giroux, H. 1998). Are Disney movies good foryour kids? In S.Steinberg and J. Kincheloe,

(Eds.),Kinderculture:Th e corporateconstructionof clhildltood. Boulder,Colorado: WVestview Press.Goodall, J. (1999). An order of pure decision:Un-natural selection in the work ofStelarc and Orlan. Body andSociety, 5(2-3),149-170.Haiken, E. 1997). Venus envy:A history ofcosmetic surgerj.Baltimore: JohnsHopkins University Press.

Hirschhorn, M. (1996). Orlan: Artist in thepost-human age of mechanical reincarntion: Body as ready (to be re-) made. InGriselda Pollock (Ed.), Generationsangeographties n the visualarts:Feminireadings.New York: Routledge.Ince, K (2000). Orlan:Millennialfemale.NewYork: Berg.

Keifer-Boyd, K, Amburgy, P. , &Knight, W.(2003). Three approaches to teachingvisual culture in K-12 school contexts.ArtEducation, 56(2),44-51.Lemoine-Luccioni, E. (1983). La robe:Essapsychanalytiquesur e vetements. PariEditions du Seuil.

Moos, D. (1996). Memories ofbeing: Orlan'stheater of he self.Art +Text, 54 , 67-72.Munsch, R. (1980). 1tepaperba g princessToronto: Annick Press, Ltd.Pitts, V. 2003). In theflesh: 17te cultural

politics ofbody modifjication.New YorPalgrave Macmillan.Quart, A (2003). Branded:The buying andsellingof teenagers. Cambridge, MAPerseus Publishing.Sarwer, D., &Crerand, C. (2004). Body imagand cosmetic medical treatments. BodyImage, 1(1), 99-111.Steinberg, S. (1998). The bitch wh o has everthing. In S. Steinberg and J. Kincheloe,(Eds.), Kinderculture: T7he corporate

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Shelton, A. (1996). Fetishism's culture. InN. Sinclair (Ed.), The chameleonbody.London: Lund Humpluies.Sturken, M., &Cartwright, L (2001). Practof looking:An introduction o visualculture.Oxford, UK. Oxford University.Sullivan, D. (2001). Cosmeticsurgery:The

cuttingedge of commercialmedicine iAmerica. New Brunswick: RutgersUniversity Press.Villeneuve, P.(2003). Editorial.ArtEducati56(2),4-5.WVolf, N. (1991). The beautymytlh: How

images ofbeauty areused againstwomen. New York: William Morrow.ENDNOTES'The authors thank reviewer Deborah SmitShank for her suggestion touse the examplDisney's Little Mermaid"n to help 'make thcase for cultural icons of beauty and ugline

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TITLE: Cosmetic Surgery and the Cultural Construction of

Beauty

SOURCE: Art Educ 58 no3 My 2005

WN: 0512104404002

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