Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture

Chapter 2: Normal Extremes: Cosmetic Surgery Television

2 Normal Extremes Cosmetic Surgery Television When three people in their twenties and thirties, Luke, Stephanie, and Stacey, collectively underwent over twenty-five hours of cosmetic surgery, documented in a two-hour special episode of network television, we were witnessing the beginning of a significant shift in the public discourse about cosmetic surgery. Before then, the idea that ordinary people would willingly expose their cosmetic surgeries, allowing millions of viewers to examine their “before” and “after” bodies in such detail, seemed unlikely. But more incredible was the very premise of popularizing an extreme surgical makeover, in which people would undergo not just one but numerous cosmetic surgeries to drastically change their appearance. This happened on the show Extreme Makeover (EM), which first aired on ABC on December 11, 2002. Since then, cosmetic surgery has become a regular staple of television fare, featured on other reality shows as well as many documentaries, dramas , and other programs. Television is one socially important place where the meanings of cosmetic surgery are being generated. Henry 39 Giroux describes television shows as “popular pedagogies” because, for better or worse, they circulate not only information but also social meanings, norms, and values to their audiences.1 And as Suzanne Fraser suggests, cosmetic surgery finds such “rich expression in the media” that it demands an analysis of its “impact on culture.”2 Although the idea of doing multiple or extreme cosmetic surgeries was not invented by television, I describe in the second half of this chapter how cosmetic surgeons see television as responsible for at least some of cosmetic surgery’s recent market expansion, as well as for the public’s understanding of what cosmetic surgery is, what it means, who should use it, and how much is acceptable. In this chapter, I describe Extreme Makeover’s vision of cosmetic surgery, and later explain cosmetic surgeons’ simultaneous complicity and unease with its representations. Extreme Makeover generated what were promoted as extreme instances of bodily transformation while at the same time producing sympathetic , socially acceptable cosmetic surgery patients. Like some of the other celebrations of cosmetic surgery I described in chapter 1, the show promoted the body as a key to expressing and even establishing one’s true identity, while identifying cosmetic surgery as a practice of selfexpression , personal wellness, and self-care. At least rhetorically , it managed to create extreme surgery without casting its characters as surgery junkies. At the same time, this show and its successors are now part of the debates on cosmetic surgery excess. Real Bodies on Reality Television Extreme Makeover is part of the genre of reality television, the appeal of which is that its participants are not actors using scripts, but purportedly real people. Thus, 40 Surgery Junkies the audience can empathize with the participants to a much greater degree than they can with actors. But as cultural studies scholar Amanda Klein points out, audiences are also well aware that reality television creates people that are essentially characters, in the sense that they are constructed—chosen, filmed, and edited through the high level of mediation of television production.3 Reality television thus has a complicated relationship with its audiences; it asks them to relate to the people on the show as real, but aims to create situations, characters, and events that are more spectacular and entertaining than ordinary life. EM’s version of extreme cosmetic surgery fulfills both tasks. However constructed the characters and situations may appear, the bodies undergo actual surgery by real surgeons. Extreme Makeover was structured in the following way: cosmetic surgery makeovers would be granted as prizes to participants who had competed to win by writing applications , which were essentially stories about their desires for bodily improvement. Extreme Makeover would pay a team of experts—surgeons, dentists, dermatologists, and so on— to suggest and perform procedures, ranging from surgeries to teeth whitening and chemical peels. The participants would not only be given the rhinoplasty, tummy tuck, or breast lift they had especially wanted but they would also get a whole range of additional procedures that would beautify them. For six weeks, they would stay in hotels, hospitals , and clinics paid for by EM, isolated from friends and family. At the end of six weeks, each participant would be given a party, what the show called the “Big Reveal,” where he or she would be reintroduced to their amazed friends, family, and loved ones in...