http://movies.yahoo.com/news/kate-winslet-rachel-weisz-form-anti-cosmetic-surgery-225321529.html
I came across this article today as I was reading various news stories, and this struck me as particularly intriguing because although it promotes the idea that a "natural" woman is healthy, this term is only vaguely defined. What do you guys think is going on here?*
To help get you started, here are a few questions you might consider: How are the commenters reacting to this article and what kinds of assumptions do they appear to be making? What do you think of the author's credibility and why? How is the readership affected by the star power of the celebrities who have formed this league?
*Don't forget to choose an analytic lens through which to approach this article, a detailed list of which can be found on the Blog Project prompt itself.
I'm thinking about the claim this article is introducing and the rhetorical techniques used. Most of this short piece is quotations, so the author is relying on the ethos of the three actresses. These actresses are "against the pressure in Hollywood for women to undergo cosmetic surgery," so they're clearly positioned against another point of view. The article seems to be taking their side by starting with "Natural woman!" and not giving any arguments for the other side. At the same time, the argument given by Weisz at the end (that people who have plastic surgery are less beautiful or sexy) suggests that it's still all about looks. Someone could argue that it's easy for these three women to be against plastic surgery since they already look very good naturally.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Marion that, ironically, the "all about looks" idea features as a prominent subtext of this anti-plastic surgery article. Some of the actresses' comments insinuating that women who undergo plastic surgery "look too perfect [and] don't look sexy or particularly beautiful" make the anti-plastic surgery cause come off as a statement of aesthetic preference rather than an attempt to lessen the cultural obsession with “ageless beauty.” However, it’s possible that the actresses intentionally made remarks about “natural” beauty – a more pleasant-sounding concept next to the “plastic” alternative – to make foregoing cosmetic alterations sound more desirable, thereby encouraging women to embrace their looks and accept the aging process with grace.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Marion that it's quite easy for three normatively attractive white actresses to disavow plastic surgery because they "naturally" meet cultural ideals. In thinking about audience, this piece and the longer article in The Telegraph, seem to be targeting women over 30 - the claim here seems to conflate natural aging with natural beauty, and then position that against "plastic" beauty (as both Marion and Emily note), thus arguably speaking to a reader worried about her own physical beauty in a culture obsessed with physical perfection. The ethos of the actresses is further supported here by the author's noting that all three have earned Oscars and all three are British - both markers of a certain sort of prestige for an American reader, especially the presumably middle class 30+ (white)(able-bodied) female reader targeted here.
ReplyDeleteI hate to harp on this "able-bodied" element, but I can't help thinking that plastic surgery here is framed as bad/evil because these are attractive actresses who have made their career on both acting (Oscar winners) but all have also had roles that traded on their desirability. If this article were instead considering women born with some sort of physical difference marked as "deformity" or "problem" the rhetoric would be reversed most likely, as seen in the campaigns to fund plastic surgery for "third world" children.
ReplyDeleteI think Brendan raises an interesting point about how plastic surgery as a concept and practice reinforces the distinction between the normative and the non-normative.All the three actresses position themselves rhetorically at a superior position harping on their socially sanctioned status as popular actresses who have found acceptance all around the world and hence, already belong to the order of the normative and are even idealized.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Thompson and Winslet talk of natural ageing as something that should be embraced- but being in a profession that has certain definite demands as far as how one looks or how the character one portrays looks, such a comment seems somewhat out of place.
Aside from the article, what I found particularly interesting here is the comments section. With the vast majority of the responses ranging from “You go girls” and “Amen,” to “I am so very happy that some of my favorite actresses are taking a stand,” it’s readily apparent that both _Us Weekly_ and the members of the “Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League” are committed to engaging a readership or fan base that is interested in the doings of celebrities and looks to those celebrities to act as positive role models. To a very large extent, the creation of an “Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League” and the reporting of it are well calculated, public moves aimed at creating positive customer feedback.
ReplyDeleteSome readers, however, recognize that this move positions “natural” beauty against “plastic” beauty (as do Marion, Emily, and Brendan), privileging the former, and are irritated by this. As readers of a weekly celebrity magazine, these responders are at least to some degree invested in a popular culture that emphatically values certain body types, ethnicities, ages (etc.) over others, and they read the creation of this league as a judgment against their own values—by and large, they think the actresses will and should change their minds when they are older. As such responses indicate, by creating this league, these actresses (and those who approve of them) position themselves against a limited conception of Hollywood beauty, but they do so at the risk of alienating some fans who, as Brendan puts it are equally “worried about [their] own physical beauty in a culture obsessed with physical perfection.”
This article and the comments made on this blog post have led me to make new connections between people who have cosmetic surgery and members of the pro-anorexia community. Many members of the pro-ana community claim their anorexia as a choice or a disease or illness that they choose not to seek treatment for. Most of these members make clear rhetorical choices about who choose to eschew conventional medical treatment in favor of either embracing anorexia as a sustainable lifestyle or valuing the support/treatment/recovery offered by the online community. Either way, they reject conventional standards of health because those standards prevent them from attaining the standard of beauty that society demands of them. As Roxanne Kirkwood explains:
ReplyDelete“First, we bombard teenage girls (and everyone else) with images and expectations of what their bodies should look like. To these expectations we add the pressures from school, family, and relationships—both platonic and romantic—all of which create demands. Then, when the girls respond in a way that seems appropriate (do whatever you can to look ideal), we judge their response as inappropriate. When they claim the label pro-ana and throw our mixed messages back into our collective faces, we accuse them of being extremely ill and pathologized to the point where we, as a society, must step in and make decisions for them (removing their websites, forced therapy, etc.) as a step to protect them. These girls are not oblivious to the irony that they only need protection after they are diagnosed as “sick” and not when they are being exposed to the condition which caused the “sickness”” (124).
Although I don’t know of an online (or otherwise located) community in support of cosmetic surgery as a rhetorical choice that recognizes conventional standards of beauty as naturally unattainable and hence partially blames society for their choice to radically alter their bodies, I think there is a definite space and need for such a community. More and more, cosmetic surgery is becoming pathologized in the same way anorexia has been (I’m thinking of women like Nadya Suleman, Heidi Pratt, and even older examples of Cher, Michael Jackson, and Dolly Parton). Hopefully a response to the Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League will demand that those not in favor of this form of body alteration stop criticizing women who elect to have cosmetic surgery without first examining the society that sets such unattainable standards of beauty.
Works Cited
Kirkwood, Roxanne. Support choice, support people: An argument for the study of pro-anorexia websites. Atena 25:1 (Juni 2005), S. 117–129.
Krista, I am intrigued by your comment regarding the societal demands placed on celebrities like Heidi Pratt, Dolly Parton, etc. I found it striking that several of the commenters directly criticized specific celebrities (e.g. Cher, Goldie Hawn, Priscilla Presley, Rose McGowan) as examples of plastic surgery "gone wrong." Clearly, the underlying assumption is that too much plastic surgery is a bad thing; in other words, the celebrities whose plastic surgery has become overly obvious should be faulted for their apparent obsession with self-fixing. Yet there is no criticism displayed here for the celebrities with minor procedures that alter a (perhaps) nonstandard facial feature, e.g. Ashley Tisdale's rhinoplasty. Despite their suggestions to the contrary, these commenters are still privileging a typical form of beauty.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm thinking about it, it's interesting to me also that the American (and possibly British as well?) obsession with "all-natural" has crossed over from food to appearance. The spate of organic, all-natural, wholesome, healthful, etc, etc appearing as adjectives to market food in recent years seems intrinsically linked with the idea of "natural" beauty being a trendier way to be beautiful than, perhaps, "artificial" beauty. But just as natural foods are often simply a label slapped on the same old product, so too does natural beauty seem an empty label. These celebrities are probably still heavily made up, airbrushed, and carefully styled in a manner no typical woman would be, yet readers still are willing to believe that they appear "natural."
After reading the article and all the insightful comments on this blog, I found myself questioning the concept of ‘natural beauty’ all day. When wandering the aisles of Walgreen’s recently, I was shocked by how many make-up and other body-altering products claim to help their user attain ‘natural beauty,’ as if a natural appearance (not to mention a beautiful one) required an additive. The rhetoric seems to be that you are not only ugly without this product, but you aren’t expressing the real, natural you by walking around product-less. Gwyneth Paltrow expresses a similar concept with an interesting twist in the Telegraph article. After dismissing certain forms of body modification as “gimmicks of pure vanity,” she goes on to legitimize breast surgery as, apparently, a repair job and therefore not, in her terminology, ‘vain’: "There’s actually nothing else to restore the original condition, is there?” The rhetoric Paltrow uses is telling of the class distinction being drawn between the celebrities who need plastic surgery (in order to make themselves feel or be pretty, and perhaps keep their job) and those who are ‘naturally’ gifted with long-lasting beauty. But the other side of her rhetoric is even more troubling, that self-modification is forgivable if it restores something to its “original condition.” But is it not ‘natural’ for a woman’s body to change after breast-feeding? Are women fighting nature by working out after pregnancy? It seems to me that we are constantly sculpting our bodies every time we exercise out of vanity or choose salad over fried foods. I fail to see the ontological difference between modifying appearance by calorie intake and by removing/implanting fat surgically.
ReplyDeleteTo agree with Alex's last statement, these celebrities fail to acknowledge the other means by which their bodies are artificiality altered. Well-intentioned or not, these women are advertising, more than anything else, their own aesthetics, arguing that their wrinkles are sexier than cosmetically wrinkle-less faces through the same promotional rhetoric of ‘natural beauty’ make-up products.