Elaine Frost
November 16, 2009
TA: Sung Choon Park
Literature/Media Review Assignment
Media Representation of Plastic Surgery in Reality Television Shows
I have long had a fascination with plastic surgery with an emphasis on its representation than perhaps its reality. While I could never imagine going under the knife, I find other women’s narratives extremely intriguing as they happily endure an experience I still find myself perplexed by, no matter how many plastic surgery reality television shows I watch. I am confused regarding the procedure’s realness (since events on television are always a mediated distilled, representation), I am confused regarding these shows’ popularity (and growing number of other copycat versions), and I am extremely curious as to what the effects are from the proliferation of such images in popular culture. In reading various articles regarding the topic of plastic surgery and its portrayal in reality TV shows, I found the following nuances: reality TV plastic surgery and its association with cyborgs, reality TV plastic surgery and its relation to Foucault and/or Baudrillard, reality TV plastic surgery and power, and plastic surgery’s place in reality TV shows as a new area of research for the purpose of examining culture.
Surgery Reality TV as a Means for Examining Culture
In “Editing as Plastic Surgery: The Swan and the Violence of Image-Creation,” Kimberly Jackson discusses how makeover shows has become a new genre in television for the purpose of popular culture studies (Jackson 55). Jackson links FOX’s reality show The Swan with the “feminine compulsion toward imitation […] which has always been intimately connected to technologies of mass production,” in particular with today’s “current obsession with plastic surgeries intent of mimicking ‘ideal’ forms” (Jackson 56). Jackson makes the interesting point that “what makes the experience of viewing the show significant for an understanding of the culture that consumes it […] is the fact that the inevitable emptying of its (female) contestants by the ruthless editing process coincides with the flat experience of the viewing audience to such a degree as to create an unprecedented intimacy between viewer and viewed” (Jackson 57). The “flat” aspect to which she refers is the show’s structure, which leaves out large portions of the surgery, the recuperation process, and the psychic after effects. Because the audience’s viewing experiences is so “flat,” the show’s structure ultimately seizes what power she might have had from her makeover since so much of her struggle is left on the cutting room floor (Jackson 57). Since “the link between the physical transformation involved in plastic surgery and the public image or persona is thus undeniable,” (Jackson 59) Jackson claims it is unavoidable that other women “would wish to appropriate these technologies for herself” (Jackson 60). Indeed, Jackson claims, this has already been done as reality TV shows involving plastic surgery has inspired “a surgical movement so profound it has crossed over all socioeconomic classes, genders, sexual orientations, and other categories” (Jackson 60).
In “An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery,” Brenda Weber essentially ties three books (Victoria Pitts-Taylor’s Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture; Meredith Jones’s Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery; and Cressida Heyes’s Self-Transformations: Foucault, Ethics, and Normalized Bodies) together in an effort to demonstrate their value in perceiving reality TV plastic surgery shows as a medium through which to study culture:
And each, I believe, succeeds in offering a useful and intelligent reading of plastic surgery as a cultural practice that speaks of and shapes our present contemporary moment, in which image functions as indexical to identity. Because all three authors offer extended readings of Extreme Makeover, commenting on television’s role in making body modification practices intelligible…(Weber 289).
She notes that analyzing these three books together unveils certain patterns about reality TV makeover shows such as the increase in empathy viewers experience with participants of these shows versus real actors and how such shows make real-life surgery less nerve-racking, endurable process:
This way of treating surgery makes television a ‘cultural anesthetic through which we experience virtual surgery, making that small step to real surgery a bit easier,’ even while plastic surgery is ‘associated with hard work and sacrifice’” (53).
Perhaps this explanation also gives reason for the increase in such shows and in the practice of the surgery itself? While Weber admits that the increasing number of these shows is culturally significant she does warn, however, that these shows are merely mediated representations and should not stand for the reality that is real life: “Although clearly television influences real people and reality TV showcases the stories of real people, it is important that we remember these are aesthetic narratives, representations of the real” (Weber 298).
Julie Albright’s article “Impossible Bodies: TV Viewing Habits, Body Image, and Plastic Surgery Attitudes among College Students in Los Angeles and Buffalo, New York” was overall the most quantified analysis of the articles I reviewed. In the article, Albright details a survey conducted regarding dissatisfied body image and its connection to viewing plastic surgery makeover shows (Albright 118). The survey’s results showed that more women than men watch such shows, those who watched more of these kinds of shows had increased “anxiety about their bodies” compared to those who watched fewer, and women were more likely than men to say that participants were considered more beautiful after their surgeries (Albright 118). Of the 662 participants, only five said they would apply to participate in such shows. All five were from L.A. Albright suggests that the proliferation of plastic surgery in L.A. (compared to Buffalo) and the higher median parental income in L.A. (making such a surgery more easily attainable) were possible explanations as to why these five were all from L.A. Those from Buffalo seemed to be more affected by these shows making them the location which had higher body image dissatisfaction:
This is an important finding, in that it suggests that higher consumption of shows specific to ‘beautification’ through plastic surgery may encourage heightened self-scrutiny among lower-class viewers. Watching more plastic-surgery reality TV and thus being exposed to more thin, worked out, and surgically enhanced models may also be contributing to western New Yorkers’ “beauty anxiety,” leading them to more often seek reassurance about their disliked feature from others, to feel more worried about their disliked feature in public and social settings, and to become more upset when someone notices or comments on it, compared to Angelenos (Albright 119).
These results are extremely telling in that they defy previous research and sociologist’s Pierre Bordieu’s framework which says that “working-class women are much less aware than those of higher classes of the value of beauty, and thus are less likely to invest ‘time and effort, sacrifices and money in cultivating their bodies’ (Albright 118). Continuing to discern the survey’s results in context to Bordieu, Albright assumes this part of New York is undergoing a “class transition via educational attainment” making them unable to look toward their “habitus” as a role model and, instead, looking to these frequently-watched shows for new role models (Albright 119). Since having plastic surgery is a sign of being able to afford plastic surgery, then these lower class (in comparison to L.A.) Buffalo college students see this type of surgery as a class signifier:
The desire for social mobility may explain why one of the fast-growing segments of the plastic-surgery market is working-class women, as plastic surgery becomes more available and affordable to them via the increased visibility of plastic surgery in the media, coupled with an increase in financing options – including lenders specializing in plastic surgery financing, free financing, and major credit cards being accepted by surgeons (Albright 123).
Using this survey on specifically cosmetic surgery TV show viewership and body dissatisfaction to gauge changed in culture means the beginning of more accurate, specific research. Although previous studies have been done on media and body dissatisfaction, this survey delved into a more specific, more telling niche in media. If Buffalo, New York is at a point of cultural transition at it alienates its habitus as a pillar of guidance for one’s lifestyle – perhaps, then, other locations nationwide are also doing the same?
Plastic Surgery’s Media Presence and Postmodernism
In Mark Poster’s article “Swan’s Way: Care of Self in the Hyperreal,” Poster focuses on the shows ABC’s Extreme Makeover, MTV’s I Want a Famous Face, FOX’s The Swan reality TV shows. Poster concentrated on these three because “these reality TV series of cosmetic surgery […] exemplify a form of media culture that carries Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the hyperreal to new levels and illustrates a landscape of hitherto unimaginable combinations of humans and information machines” (Poster 153). Additionally Poster goes on to relate these three shows to Foucault’s notions of the “care of self” and the “hermeneutics of the subject” (Poster 153) as well.
Poster starts with the observation that “The Swan presents a puritanical code to the contestants: they are being judged by how well they conform to the regimen imposed by the experts” (Poster 156). Basically, the “winners” of these shows are not the women who turn out to be the most beautiful; instead the winners are those who the audience deems has struggled the most for “personal redemption” (Poster 156) via cosmetic surgeries. Despite audiences feeling as though they have witnessed each participant’s full spectrum of struggle, Poster claims that “what might appear to be ‘reality’ remains televised hyppereality” (Poster 162) because the reality in these shows is “heavily mediated” (Poster 163). Therefore viewers are not getting the dose of reality they think they are. Through these shows, and through the “integration between culture and technology […] humans are now […] ‘chimerical cocktails,’ or ‘living chimeras, strange mixtures of man and machine’” (Poster 164). But why do people subject themselves to becoming such creatures?
Poster’s article asserts that they are merely participating in Foucault’s idea of “the care of self” since it involves personal “emancipation endeavors” which can include cosmetic surgery (Poster 166): “The relation one has with oneself is neither narcissism nor self-indulgence, but the ‘first or final point of resistance to political power’” (Poster 167). In Poster’s view the care of self is merely a mode of cultural resistance (Poster 167):
The surgeries may be interpreted as new modes of care of self both for the participants and for the audience. The shows validate and legitimize an ethic of self-transformation in an age of mediated culture, one certainly different from that of the Hellenistic era discussed by Foucault, but one perhaps more consonant with a time when information machines are in a new relation with humans (Poster 172).
While previously the experience of publicly going from an ugly duckling to a swan would have been mortifying, “the care of self now requires information machines for its fulfillment” (Poster 173), and in using such machines people are no longer “actualizing themselves, achieving their ‘true’ identity, but [are instead] exploring possibilities of personhood in the age of information machines” (Poster 175).
Plastic Surgery and Power
When researching the phenomenon of plastic surgery reality television shows, I wondered – in general – why is the trend of surgically augmenting oneself so popular that it warrants a plethora of TV shows dedicated to the practice? Who started this trend: was it a grassroots movement or did it trickle down from the surgeons and biotechnology companies themselves in an effort to popularize the procedure to make more money?
In Bradley Lewis’ article “Newsweek Magazine and the Circuits of Medical Culture,” he argues that it is popular culture that is the driving force. Lewis used a health and technology issue of Newsweek magazine to demonstrate how modern-day, popular influences are “deeply problematic” (Lewis 363) for the medical community, pressuring them to adhere to popular demands (i.e. bigger breasts, modern veneers, rhinoplasties, etc.). Lewis uses the Newsweek magazine to analyze the way in which drugs and medical procedures are represented in a popular magazine. He concludes that only “through an appreciation of the dynamics of culture [can] medical humanities scholars” begin to unify for the purpose of overcoming “the struggle over medical culture” (Lewis 363). To make this case, Lewis takes the reader through the cultural studies’ circuit of culture (production, representation, etc.) in context to the medical community. While Lewis’ article is a bit broad, the process of medical technologies and its path through the circuit of culture is most certainly relevant to plastic surgery since its media portrayal (and therefore consumption) is not all that different from Lewis’ biotechnology and its path through the circuit of culture:
During production, ‘symbolic vehicles constituted within the rules of ‘language’ are released as forms of representation for circulation and consumption into the circuits of culture. Production encodes these circulating artifacts with the frames of reference embedded in the producer’s local practices and technical skills: ‘professional ideologies, institutional knowledge, definitions and assumptions, assumptions about the audience, and so on.’ This connection between production and representation is perhaps the most crucial insight of postmodern theory (Lewis 366).
Basically Lewis concludes that the medical community bends to popular culture: “A postmodern perspective does not argue that the science and ethics of these producers are false or bad, only that they are malleable in the direction of powerful interests” such as media are (Lewis 372).
In William Egginton’s “The Best or the Worse of our Nature: Reality TV and the Desire for Limitless Change,” Egginton argues that viewers hold the power as they have “become the agency of domination” in relation to reality TV (Egginton 182).
Because the phenomenon of reality television involves the “display of self, be it in its progressive modification or in its prior deficiency, is still a display and hence a giving over of the self to the view of others” (Egginton 182) which in turn signifies the acquiescing of power by reality TV show participants. In the “display of self” in cosmetic surgery reality TV, the audience is shown two “selves.” This display causes a paradox where the viewer is presented with the same person as two different people in the “before” and “after” (Egginton 190) without much time having passed in the in-between causing a “normal” personal sense to be one of “self-in-change” not of self-identity (Egginton 190). Egginton, too, examined FOX’s The Swan and from it he observed that it – and other makeover TV shows – advertise the ability for a “changeless self as the very justification and agent of the desire for the limitless change” (Egginton 191). He claims these shows do wrongly by the viewer since limitless change is, in reality, not an option despite what these shows propose (Egginton 191). Ultimately these shows yield only losers as the participants hand their identity – and therefore their personal power – over to viewers while viewers are led to believe these participants are part of a real world in which bodies are subject to ultimate malleability in the face of the fear of not being able to change at all.
In Virginia Blum’s “Becoming the Other Woman” The Psychic Drama of Cosmetic Surgery,” Blum researches the narratives mediated realities (i.e. The Swan, Extreme Makeover, etc.) fail to convey. Her article also slightly touches on the notion of women being self-subjugators.
While her article only briefly discusses plastic surgery and reality TV shows, her key findings are still interesting in the discourse surrounding plastic surgery as a reality television phenomenon. She interviewed thirty-nine surgeons from various regions in the United States about cosmetic surgery, only two happened to be women. She also interviewed eleven patients, only two of whom happened to be men. Following these interviews she concludes that these narratives explain how women consume plastic surgery (ideally via television and in actuality through surgery) for the means of a “becoming the Other Woman ” with whom every single woman is in competition (Blum 107): “Cosmetic surgery can be seen as a dramatization of the relationship between a woman and an imaginary Other Woman figure, the perennial rival with whom girls are taught to compete the moment they know and care about what it means to be pretty” (Blum 110). Women are “taught” this envy via the images portrayed in the media and the myths women spread to other women regarding female sexuality. Blum’s article becomes even more relevant to my topic-in-question when she briefly sums up the conception of reality TV makeover shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover:
The interaction of a capitalist competitive model with the dynamic of female rivalry has changed the shape of that rivalry. The beauty contest within postindustrial society significantly differs from that archetypal beauty contest where Paris decided in favor of sexual gratification by choosing Venus over Hera and Athena. The contemporary contest has put beautiful body parts on the assembly line of sexual fantasy, whose built-in system of interchangeability is not only necessary to the buying and selling of beauty, but renders its purchase evanescent (Blum 112).
Through this insight, Blum acknowledges that it is women versus women who have marginalized female sexuality so much so that these shows have surfaced and have becoming overwhelmingly popular – among women of course. While her article does not answer this question it surely raises it, “Are women their own subjugators?”
Pamela Orosan-Weine’s article “The Swan: The Fantasy of Transformation versus the Reality of Growth,” also acknowledges notions of power in relation to cosmetic surgery reality TV shows. Weine describes the pattern in which such shows – specifically The Swan – have a positive effect in that they inspire participants to change, however this change only comes when participants are recognized by others which in turn leaves participants with less personal power than they might assume they hold. Weine says participants’ personal power and agency only arise when participants are acknowledged by the “other” – in this case the TV experts and audiences (Weine 20). For participants, The Swan “and its recognition, provides for them the sense of being seen, being recognized, and being responded to” (Weine 21). Such recognition initially includes attention from the show’s “experts” including doctors, trainers, dermatologists, etc. who continually meet with participants until their transformation:
These seemingly simple actions, of being recognized and attended to, begin to mobilize these women to become active agents on their own behalf […and…] this developing bond between the contestant and the experts and the viewers is the fuel by which the contestants become attached to themselves and gain the confidence to begin their transformation. (Weine 21).
Weine notes that the women who usually apply to be part of The Swan are women with “unfortunate life histories” (Weine 32). These participants are women who have put their families and jobs first while prioritizing themselves last (Weine 21). Being catered to and being “helped by others seems to fuel the contestants’ investment in themselves and appears to restimulate the developmental process of growth that had stalled out for them” (Weine 32). Provoking change it may, however, The Swan also has its degrading aspects besides usurping personal agency as stated above. It also depersonalizes participants’ makeovers as “each contestant looks more and more like a Barbie doll, with exceedingly long, straight hair extension, excessive breast augmentations, plumped-up lips, and very high heels” (Weine 30). This depersonalization ultimately makes The Swan a mere showcase of surgeons’ technical capabilities instead of a mode of altruistic inspiration for personal change on more than just a physical level (Weine 30).
Plastic Surgery and Cyborg Associations
In Bernadette Wegenstein’s “Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete,” Wegenstein reinforces how discourse surrounding the fragmented body has become an outdated discourse (Wegenstein 222). Wegenstein gives the background of how, for centuries, bodies have been talked about in “fragmented” ways, in which the one part of the body being discussed/viewed stood for the whole in a synecdochic fashion. For years it had been the face that stood for the whole body, however in this “era of posthumanity,” (Wegenstein 234), the face is no longer used in media leaving other body parts (i.e. a leg, arm, etc.) to act as the “faciality” for the body making the face, head, and brain merely an accessory (Wegenstein 235): “Beauty discourse has penetrated the inner body, where our real capital is hidden: our organs, our blood, our DNA” (Wegenstein 234). Beauty products now use images and rhetoric similar to that of invasive cosmetic surgery along with other advertisements and media. By focusing on the internal we de-humanize the human form as it gradually becomes face-less: “We might then be able to hypothesize that the erasure of the face could be seen as precursor of an erasure that affects human corporeality as such [and] by navigating interior corporeal spaces, indeed, similarities between humans, animals, and machines become much clearer and are no longer ‘disturbed’ by the codes of visibility” (Wegenstein 237). In the end humans become less human when body discourse/representation does not involve our exterior, bodily identifications it has long been associated:
This kind of redefinition of similarities and, as a result, of categories that demarcate humanness from animalness, or humans from machines, can only be understood culturally through the rhetoric of ‘getting under the skin’ and getting rid of faces and other such overcoded markers of humanness (Wegenstein 237).
As our “humanness” deteriorates – in media – as a readily associative quality for the human body, Wegenstein posits that humans become cyborgs in lieu of being human. While Wegenstein mostly focuses on advertisements in her essay, this cyborg association is eerily relatable to participants’ bodies – and therefore all human bodies – as being comparable to cyborgs – a correlation all too frightening in its science fiction connotations. Wegenstein’s deteriorating “humanness” is very similar to Anne Jerslev’s “The Mediated Body: Cosmetic Surgery in Television Drama, Reality Television and Fashion Photography.” In her article, Jerslev analyzes episodes of reality television: ABC's “Extreme Makeover” and FOX's “The Swan,” as well as the drama “Nip Tuck” and a series of fashion photographs titled “Makeover Madness” from an Italian Vogue's 2005 issue. Jerslev finds that reality television shows have played a significant role in normalizing plastic surgery to an extreme point of reinforcing that the physical “natural” body is without transformational limitations. The portrayal of plastic surgery in such shows ultimately encourage consumers of these visuals to think these surgeries are always speedy, augmenting Wegenstein’s notion that media now reinforce the deterioration of the body’s “humanness” as its limits become limitless.
What’s Missing and What I Intend to Research
While some articles discussed the gender makeup of these shows, most of the articles failed to touch on the racial and age makeup. I would like to further research the socio-economic backgrounds of participants. Having noticed (from watching the shows myself) that mostly white, young people are chosen as participants, I feel this must somehow affect the viewers who consume these shows. What does this trend say about men and public plastic surgery? What does this trend say about the topic of inclusion? It might also be important to include how these surgeries politicize the body and how that relates to Foucault’s notions of the political body.
Works Cited
Albright, Julie M. “Impossible Bodies: TV Viewing Habits, Body Image, and Plastic Surgery Attitudes among College Students in Los Angeles and Buffalo, New York.” Configurations, 2007, vol. 15, pp.103–123.
Blum, Virginia. “Becoming the Other Woman: The Psychic Drama of Cosmetic Surgery.” Frontiers, 2005, vol. 26 no. 2, pp. 104-131.
Egginton, William. “The Best or the Worse of our Nature: Reality TV and the Desire for Limitless Change.” Configurations, 2007, vol. 15, pp.177–191.
Jackson, Kimberly. “Editing as Plastic Surgery: The Swan and the Violence of Image Creation,” Configurations, 2007, vol. 15. pp. 55–76.
Jerslev, Anne. “The Mediated Body: Cosmetic Surgery in Television Drama, Reality Television and Fashion Photography.” Nordicom Reivew, vol. 27 no. 2, pp. 133-151.
Lewis, Bradley. “Newsweek Magazine and the Circuits of Medical Culture,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2007, vol. 50 no. 3, pp. 363–78.
Orosan-Weine, Pamela. “The Swan: The Fantasy of Transformation versus the Reality of Growth.” Configurations, 2007, vol.15, pp. 17–32.
Poster, Mark. “Swan’s Way: Care of Self in the Hyperreal.” Configurations, 2007, vol. 15. pp. 151–175.
Weber, Brenda. “An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, 2009 vol. 37, pp. 289-299.
Wegenstein, Bernadette.“Getting Under the Skin, or, How Faces Have Become Obsolete.” Configurations, 2002, vol.10, pp. 221–259.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Reaction Paper -- Wannabes and Their Procedural Denial
Lainie Frost
TA: S. Park
Reaction Paper
October 21, 2009
‘Wannabes’ and Their Procedural Denial
For some, plastic surgery is not a shocking ritual. However, even those unfazed individuals might find voluntary amputation unsettling. During my search for articles relating to plastic surgery’s representation in the media, I came across the article “The Rhetorical Limits of the ‘Plastic Body’” by John W. Jordan. In Jordan’s article he explores and explains ‘Wannabes’ in context to the plastic surgery world. These Wannabes are individuals who have a perceived body dysmorphia causing them to ask for amputation of body parts that are completely healthy. Because this procedure is not culturally popular, and therefore provocative, surgeons are less likely to perform this type of surgery.
Who They Are
Jordan makes the point that plastic surgery seems accessible because surgeons reinforce the procedure’s democratic nature – anyone can have it, theoretically. In actuality, Wannabes are those individuals who are the exception to this mantra. Jordan draws attention to the way in which Wannabes challenge the authority and acceptance involved in the plastic surgery realm:
The farther an applicant’s desires are from socially sanctioned body images, the more reluctant surgeons are to make those desires real. Because ‘it is, generally, not acceptable in our culture to be disabled, let alone have an unexplained desire and want for amputation or disability,’ wannabes find themselves in the oppressive position of having to prove not only their surgical worthiness but also the validity of their body alteration desires. (Jordan 15).
The ‘Disorder’ Wannabes Cause
Those lacking limbs have always been culturally considered ‘disabled,’ and therefore those healthy bodies requesting to become disabled cause “disorder” within the plastic surgery realm because they challenge what type of surgeries should be performed. (Jordan 16) In this context, the role of surgeon becomes the role of a gatekeeper as the doctor proceeds to deem who is and is not worthy of surgery. Because these surgeons act in this capacity, those seeking amputations must engage in a type of discourse similar to those wanting a nose job or liposuction:
Wannabes further parallel mainstream plastic surgery arguments by making use of the rhetorical juxtaposition between their physical and ideal selves to redefine their desire for amputation as a rational response to a pressing need rather than a fanciful whim or mental instability. Amputees insist that they ‘needed to become an amputee. It was not a wish. It was a need,’ and that for them living in a wrong body is ‘worse than death’ (Jordan 17).
With this parallel, Jordan notes that these amputee-seekers are the ideal surgical candidate for plastic surgery despite the trend of surgery denial. Since these surgeries are not accepted in reality, they are hardly represented in media, particularly on television – a cycle which only reinforces the unacceptable cultural sentiments toward Wannabes.
Negative Framing and Wannabes
In Jordan’s article, he cites a print article that negatively frames Wannabes:
A surgeon in Scotland amputated the legs of two psychologically disturbed men who had nothing physically wrong with them but felt a ‘desperate’ need to be amputees. Although factually accurate, the manner in which the Wannabes are framed casts doubt on the medical veracity of their illness (Jordan 20).
Stories like these act as the media representation for this group. Lacking a diverse portrayal, Wannabes are seemingly de-legitimized, if they were at all considered “legitimate” to begin with in the public’s eye. To align themselves with a more acceptable style of surgery, Jordan claims some Wannabes liken their requests to those who seek sexual reassignment surgery (Jordan 21). Surgeons vehemently negate this argument making positive representation in media even less likely.
In the end surgeons’ general refusal to take part in the desired discourse Wannabes care to engage in yields the inability for cultural paradigms in media to shift in a favorable direction.
While I would never request to have a healthy limb amputated from my body, I believe that these Wannabes should be viewed in a more legitimate context rather than the usual negative frame. Perhaps Wannabes suffer from a mental illness likened to depression or anxiety. Even if they do, I believe this cohort deserves to be served by doctors in the capacity in which Wannabes request their services. There are a plethora of plastic surgery stories out there of people – women in particular – whose couple of surgeries lead to several and in turn lead to an addiction. While addiction in the medical field is acknowledged as part of a mental illness, plastic surgeons still operate on these individuals. If these plastic surgery addicts are served by plastic surgeons then why not serve Wannabes, too? While these two perceived body dysmorphias are on the opposite sides of the plastic surgery spectrum, if one group is served it seems only just that the other is as well. Indeed it is a radical notion; however surgeons cannot claim plastic surgery is a “democratic” ritual – one in which anyone can partake as long as they can pay for it – if they continue the role of gatekeeper. Since they are not the monopoly on morality, and often enable plastic surgery addicts, refusing Wannabes is simply not an option.
TA: S. Park
Reaction Paper
October 21, 2009
‘Wannabes’ and Their Procedural Denial
For some, plastic surgery is not a shocking ritual. However, even those unfazed individuals might find voluntary amputation unsettling. During my search for articles relating to plastic surgery’s representation in the media, I came across the article “The Rhetorical Limits of the ‘Plastic Body’” by John W. Jordan. In Jordan’s article he explores and explains ‘Wannabes’ in context to the plastic surgery world. These Wannabes are individuals who have a perceived body dysmorphia causing them to ask for amputation of body parts that are completely healthy. Because this procedure is not culturally popular, and therefore provocative, surgeons are less likely to perform this type of surgery.
Who They Are
Jordan makes the point that plastic surgery seems accessible because surgeons reinforce the procedure’s democratic nature – anyone can have it, theoretically. In actuality, Wannabes are those individuals who are the exception to this mantra. Jordan draws attention to the way in which Wannabes challenge the authority and acceptance involved in the plastic surgery realm:
The farther an applicant’s desires are from socially sanctioned body images, the more reluctant surgeons are to make those desires real. Because ‘it is, generally, not acceptable in our culture to be disabled, let alone have an unexplained desire and want for amputation or disability,’ wannabes find themselves in the oppressive position of having to prove not only their surgical worthiness but also the validity of their body alteration desires. (Jordan 15).
The ‘Disorder’ Wannabes Cause
Those lacking limbs have always been culturally considered ‘disabled,’ and therefore those healthy bodies requesting to become disabled cause “disorder” within the plastic surgery realm because they challenge what type of surgeries should be performed. (Jordan 16) In this context, the role of surgeon becomes the role of a gatekeeper as the doctor proceeds to deem who is and is not worthy of surgery. Because these surgeons act in this capacity, those seeking amputations must engage in a type of discourse similar to those wanting a nose job or liposuction:
Wannabes further parallel mainstream plastic surgery arguments by making use of the rhetorical juxtaposition between their physical and ideal selves to redefine their desire for amputation as a rational response to a pressing need rather than a fanciful whim or mental instability. Amputees insist that they ‘needed to become an amputee. It was not a wish. It was a need,’ and that for them living in a wrong body is ‘worse than death’ (Jordan 17).
With this parallel, Jordan notes that these amputee-seekers are the ideal surgical candidate for plastic surgery despite the trend of surgery denial. Since these surgeries are not accepted in reality, they are hardly represented in media, particularly on television – a cycle which only reinforces the unacceptable cultural sentiments toward Wannabes.
Negative Framing and Wannabes
In Jordan’s article, he cites a print article that negatively frames Wannabes:
A surgeon in Scotland amputated the legs of two psychologically disturbed men who had nothing physically wrong with them but felt a ‘desperate’ need to be amputees. Although factually accurate, the manner in which the Wannabes are framed casts doubt on the medical veracity of their illness (Jordan 20).
Stories like these act as the media representation for this group. Lacking a diverse portrayal, Wannabes are seemingly de-legitimized, if they were at all considered “legitimate” to begin with in the public’s eye. To align themselves with a more acceptable style of surgery, Jordan claims some Wannabes liken their requests to those who seek sexual reassignment surgery (Jordan 21). Surgeons vehemently negate this argument making positive representation in media even less likely.
In the end surgeons’ general refusal to take part in the desired discourse Wannabes care to engage in yields the inability for cultural paradigms in media to shift in a favorable direction.
While I would never request to have a healthy limb amputated from my body, I believe that these Wannabes should be viewed in a more legitimate context rather than the usual negative frame. Perhaps Wannabes suffer from a mental illness likened to depression or anxiety. Even if they do, I believe this cohort deserves to be served by doctors in the capacity in which Wannabes request their services. There are a plethora of plastic surgery stories out there of people – women in particular – whose couple of surgeries lead to several and in turn lead to an addiction. While addiction in the medical field is acknowledged as part of a mental illness, plastic surgeons still operate on these individuals. If these plastic surgery addicts are served by plastic surgeons then why not serve Wannabes, too? While these two perceived body dysmorphias are on the opposite sides of the plastic surgery spectrum, if one group is served it seems only just that the other is as well. Indeed it is a radical notion; however surgeons cannot claim plastic surgery is a “democratic” ritual – one in which anyone can partake as long as they can pay for it – if they continue the role of gatekeeper. Since they are not the monopoly on morality, and often enable plastic surgery addicts, refusing Wannabes is simply not an option.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
UMS Abstract of Three Articles Pertaining to My Topic of Interest
The Mediated Body: Cosmetic Surgery in Television Drama, Reality Television and Fashion Photography
Anne Jerslev
Nordicom Reivew
Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 133-151
Purpose
This article works from the premise of film researcher Vivian Sobchack's notion of the “digital morph” to make the case that an altered body is now the accepted “natural” form of the human shape in both the media and in reality.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Jerslev analyzes episodes of reality television: ABC's “Extreme Makeover” and FOX's “The Swan,” as well as the drama “Nip Tuck” and a series of fashion photographs titled “Makeover Madness” from an Italian Vogue's 2005 issue.
Findings
Reality television shows have played a significant role in normalizing plastic surgery to an extreme point of reinforcing that the physical “natural” body is without transformational limitations. The portrayal of plastic surgery in the mediums chosen for analysis (reality television, dramatic television series, and fashion photographs) ultimately encourage consumers of these visuals to think these surgeries are always speedy.
Research limitations/Implications
Analyzing one medium instead of cherry-picking a variety of media genres might have made this proposed evidence more concrete. There is not enough quantification in Jerslev's methodology. Instead, it is more a first-person narrative type of analysis.
Originality/Value
This article augments previous, older analysis of boy modification's representation in media and provides a more modern examination through its use of reality television programs.
Keywords: body modification, cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery, the body, makeover television shows
The Rhetorical Limits of the “Plastic Body”
John W. Jordan
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Vol. 90 No. 3, pp. 327-358
Purpose
This article aims to rename the “natural body” as the “plastic body” as a result of modern-day plastic surgery culture and its effective rhetoric.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Jordan carries out a content analysis of he rhetoric of doctors' and patients' rhetoric within the current plastic surgery discourse. He examines three “rhetorical phenomena” in the realm of plastic surgery: 1) the marketing-style efforts to convince the public of the body's limitless ability to be quickly and easily modified 2) the “rhetorical work” those seeking surgery do in order to be chosen by surgeons and 3) challenges to the medical community's notion of the “better body” by those who seek amputation, also known as “Wannabes.”
Findings of the Three Phenomena
1)Plastic surgery culture has used language promoting itself as an elective surgery people of any socioeconomic background can undergo, emphasizing its democratic quality.
2) Those seeking surgery take part in an effort to highlight the negativeness of their bodies in hopes of being selected for surgery.
3) “Wannabes” – those who desire to amputate a healthy limb – are often turned away since they do not fit into the ideal plastic body surgeons in the plastic surgery culture wish to promote.
Jordan's concludes with the notion that the “rhetorical inventions” are just as important as the technological advances which mediate the “natural body” into a plastic one.
Research limitations/Implications
There is no quantitative analysis in this article. Although Jordan alludes to the marketing-style rhetoric surgeons have used to obtain more applicants for surgery, he fails to quantify the terms these doctors use in the plastic surgery discourse.
Originality/Value
The value of this article is precisely they way Jordan describes his own research:
A rhetorical analysis of these texts yields important insights into the ways that the borders between technology, medicine, authority, and body image are managed through the production of plastic bodies. Statements regarding the “proper” uses of plastic surgery do not limit the body alterations surgeons can perform but the kinds they will perform, which in turn influences the
kinds of bodies prospective patients should ask for.
Keywords: Plastic surgery, body modification, body image, the body
TV News Coverage of Plastic Surgery, 1972-2004
Sooyoung Cho
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Vol. 84, No. 1, pp 75-89
Purpose
To determine the ways in which television news coverage has differed and/or has treated health news stories related to plastic surgery during the past 30 years.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Cho performed a content analysis of the 265 news story abstracts (found on the Vanderbilt TV Archives Web site) on various types of plastic surgery from the five major television networks from 1972 until 2004.
Findings
Cho found that television news stories covering plastic surgery topics included experts from various fields along with doctors from the field – this occurred in particular with breast implant stories. The trend of using additional experts as talking heads differed from other health news stories because those stories solely used medical experts from the specific field relating to the story. Also, in these plastic surgery stories involving breast implants, news organizations sought activists' opinions more often than with other health news stories.
Research limitations/Implications
Using abstracts to explore media framing of this topic might not have yielded the most precise findings. Using the Vanderbilt Archives was useful because it chronicled further back in time compared to other archive portals.
Originality/Value
The value in this analysis is in its quantitative findings. This article also sheds light on the different ways in which television news has covered varying health news stories.
Keywords: media, plastic surgery, television, cosmetic surgery
Anne Jerslev
Nordicom Reivew
Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 133-151
Purpose
This article works from the premise of film researcher Vivian Sobchack's notion of the “digital morph” to make the case that an altered body is now the accepted “natural” form of the human shape in both the media and in reality.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Jerslev analyzes episodes of reality television: ABC's “Extreme Makeover” and FOX's “The Swan,” as well as the drama “Nip Tuck” and a series of fashion photographs titled “Makeover Madness” from an Italian Vogue's 2005 issue.
Findings
Reality television shows have played a significant role in normalizing plastic surgery to an extreme point of reinforcing that the physical “natural” body is without transformational limitations. The portrayal of plastic surgery in the mediums chosen for analysis (reality television, dramatic television series, and fashion photographs) ultimately encourage consumers of these visuals to think these surgeries are always speedy.
Research limitations/Implications
Analyzing one medium instead of cherry-picking a variety of media genres might have made this proposed evidence more concrete. There is not enough quantification in Jerslev's methodology. Instead, it is more a first-person narrative type of analysis.
Originality/Value
This article augments previous, older analysis of boy modification's representation in media and provides a more modern examination through its use of reality television programs.
Keywords: body modification, cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery, the body, makeover television shows
The Rhetorical Limits of the “Plastic Body”
John W. Jordan
Quarterly Journal of Speech
Vol. 90 No. 3, pp. 327-358
Purpose
This article aims to rename the “natural body” as the “plastic body” as a result of modern-day plastic surgery culture and its effective rhetoric.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Jordan carries out a content analysis of he rhetoric of doctors' and patients' rhetoric within the current plastic surgery discourse. He examines three “rhetorical phenomena” in the realm of plastic surgery: 1) the marketing-style efforts to convince the public of the body's limitless ability to be quickly and easily modified 2) the “rhetorical work” those seeking surgery do in order to be chosen by surgeons and 3) challenges to the medical community's notion of the “better body” by those who seek amputation, also known as “Wannabes.”
Findings of the Three Phenomena
1)Plastic surgery culture has used language promoting itself as an elective surgery people of any socioeconomic background can undergo, emphasizing its democratic quality.
2) Those seeking surgery take part in an effort to highlight the negativeness of their bodies in hopes of being selected for surgery.
3) “Wannabes” – those who desire to amputate a healthy limb – are often turned away since they do not fit into the ideal plastic body surgeons in the plastic surgery culture wish to promote.
Jordan's concludes with the notion that the “rhetorical inventions” are just as important as the technological advances which mediate the “natural body” into a plastic one.
Research limitations/Implications
There is no quantitative analysis in this article. Although Jordan alludes to the marketing-style rhetoric surgeons have used to obtain more applicants for surgery, he fails to quantify the terms these doctors use in the plastic surgery discourse.
Originality/Value
The value of this article is precisely they way Jordan describes his own research:
A rhetorical analysis of these texts yields important insights into the ways that the borders between technology, medicine, authority, and body image are managed through the production of plastic bodies. Statements regarding the “proper” uses of plastic surgery do not limit the body alterations surgeons can perform but the kinds they will perform, which in turn influences the
kinds of bodies prospective patients should ask for.
Keywords: Plastic surgery, body modification, body image, the body
TV News Coverage of Plastic Surgery, 1972-2004
Sooyoung Cho
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Vol. 84, No. 1, pp 75-89
Purpose
To determine the ways in which television news coverage has differed and/or has treated health news stories related to plastic surgery during the past 30 years.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Cho performed a content analysis of the 265 news story abstracts (found on the Vanderbilt TV Archives Web site) on various types of plastic surgery from the five major television networks from 1972 until 2004.
Findings
Cho found that television news stories covering plastic surgery topics included experts from various fields along with doctors from the field – this occurred in particular with breast implant stories. The trend of using additional experts as talking heads differed from other health news stories because those stories solely used medical experts from the specific field relating to the story. Also, in these plastic surgery stories involving breast implants, news organizations sought activists' opinions more often than with other health news stories.
Research limitations/Implications
Using abstracts to explore media framing of this topic might not have yielded the most precise findings. Using the Vanderbilt Archives was useful because it chronicled further back in time compared to other archive portals.
Originality/Value
The value in this analysis is in its quantitative findings. This article also sheds light on the different ways in which television news has covered varying health news stories.
Keywords: media, plastic surgery, television, cosmetic surgery
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Assessing My Pursuit of a Master’s Degree with a More Discerning Eye
I have always wanted an M.A. In fact I’ve always wanted to hold a Ph.D., too. I am the first person in my immediate family to complete an undergraduate degree, and I always knew I never wanted to stop with just that. Earning a B.A. in journalism and pursuing a career in that field often makes others ask me why I would even continue with formal education. Among aspiring and seasoned journalists alike the assumption is that either one immediately seeks an M.A. after undergraduate school, and therefore misses out on real world experience, or one forgoes higher-level education for the purpose of immediately gaining resume-worthy experience within the field. I always wondered, “Why not have both?” The only part of my Master’s journey I could have never anticipated was that it would be in “New Media” since I did not grow up with a wealth of technology. Because we had little money – and because my dad was significantly older – I listened to music on a record player and did homework on a typewriter.
Personal and Professional Influences
There isn’t enough space to list the influential people and experiences that have led me to where I am now. Without the English teachers who inspired my odd fascination with grammar and syntax to the professors who stimulated my fondness of Emerson and Thoreau, I certainly would be on a different trajectory today. In my high school, English and literature classes had the strongest teachers of all the courses taught. And because of those proficient teachers, I was sent off to college with a lyrical foundation that inspired me to love words, to use words thoughtfully, and to tell engaging stories with them.
In my first year at Emerson College, I was introduced to Nellie Bly – the first American investigative journalist. She intrigued me because most women in the late nineteenth century were hardly ever hired to write and be published. I liked that this young woman was “not content with the usual women’s articles – stories of social gatherings and parties – [so] Bly immediately began her investigative career” with her story “Ten Days in a Madhouse” (Mills 99). In her compelling expose, Bly visits the Blackwell’s Island Asylum in order to uncover the conditions women suffered there. For me the words, phrases, and literary style made her story completely palpable. Immediately I knew this was the kind of journalism I wanted to do. Having grown up abroad in Latin and South America, I witnessed much political turmoil. This unrest led me to believe that there must be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people whose stories have yet been told. Reflecting up these memories, I thought that one day I could be a Nellie Bly of Latin American political strife, but only after I had obtained adequate the tangible – monetary – and the intangible – knowledge – to do so. Although a dangerous objective, so too was Nellie Bly’s.
Additional – and more modern – influences in my journalistic journey have been my professors from The George Washington University. They introduced me to a world of production to which I was immediately hooked. With long hours and much patience, they taught me how to make my stories materialize in a way that was palatable to a mass audience. They also taught me the basis for my New Media interests – operating content management systems, building Web sites from scratch, using programs like Dreamweaver and Flash, and editing with Final Cut Pro. Additionally I honed an instinct for non-linear storytelling, which I feel, is key to journalism’s future within the context of New Media tools. I was first subjected to non-linear storytelling when a professor at GW showed us an online interactive map which detailed the events of Hurricane Katrina. Instead of being made to learn the details in a chronological order, the user could click on different areas-of-interest on the map to experience the story in the order he/she desired. Another example this professor showed our class was a site about 9/11 victims' families. The site looked like a grid, and in each "box" was a person's picture. The user could click on any picture in any order to learn about the person's story. I couldn't believe I had never thought of this earlier in my journalistic career. Instead of forcing a reader/audience/user to access a narrative in a particular way, I could -- as a non-linear storyteller -- allow them to have options.
Being part of the Facebook generation has also affected my desire to pursue an M.A. in New Media Studies. In the future– when we are further removed from the beginnings of the iPod-Facebook-Twitter era – academics will critically discern what effects the whirlwind of media and technology changes meant and continue to mean to our society. With this Master’s degree, I anticipate being one of those academics participating in that discourse. While the process of that debate has already begun, I believe as years pass the analytical lens will be clearer, more diverse and perhaps more provocative. Earning a New Media Studies M.A. will certainly augment my capabilities for significantly impacting that exploration.
Anticipated Contributions to My Field
Pondering the future as to what contributions I will make to media and/or journalism is mind-boggling. At this point it’s hard to imagine that I could have any significant impact in the media field. With role models – whom I aspire to be like – including Nellie Bly, Lynn Barber, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow, Roger Mudd and Peter Jennings – it’s hard to think I could compare or even come remotely close to the contributions they’ve made. Some of their niches (i.e. Cronkite, Mudd, Jennings) have become obsolete now and therefore unlikely and unnecessary to be filled. Instead, my goal contribution for the moment will be to heighten women’s presence in the realm of media production. Having worked in the past as the sole female on many shoots and editing processes, I feel as though my presence of “making it” as a producer will surely pave the path for prospective female producers. As of now it seems to be “a man’s world” in which men operate cameras, manage operating boards, produce award-winning shows, and rise in the production ranks more quickly than women. Perhaps that disparity will diminish as more women, like myself, make way for other women to feel comfortable in such occupations.
My ultimate career contribution, though, is to undertake my “Nellie Bly” style story regarding Latin American political unrest. To this day many are clueless about “La Guerra Sucia” in Argentina in the 1980s or even the whole dynamic between Panama and the United States up through the late 1990s. These are the types of stories I wish to generate eventually – most likely ten years or so from now when I’ve been in the media business a significant time and have established adequate resources to do these stories justice. I believe that I am the right medium through which these stories should be told. And perhaps with the wealth of technology at my fingertips today, I might have he ability to report them in a non-linear, new media style way.
In a decade or more from now I imagine I might also be an adjunct professor. Part of the lure of earning my Master’s now was so I could teach later and be part of an academic ritual – passing on to others the nuggets of knowledge that were taught to me which had been passed down to my teachers and their teachers. Teaching, to me, is the ultimate contribution since knowledge is the ultimate and most fundamental intangible. And because I value it so, I have continued my higher-level educational journey and will continue to do so throughout my life.
WORKS CITED:
Mills Eleanor and Kira Cochrane. Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Rwiting and Reporting by
Women Journalists. Perseus Books Group; Berkeley, CA; 2005.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Vaginal Modification and the Political Power of Women
Vaginal Modification Rough Draft
Background
Vaginal rejuvenation (also known as “designer vaginas” or “Stepford vulvas”) is believed to be “the fastest growing emerging growth trend in cosmetic plastic surgery.”[1] This procedure, which has grown particularly popular in the past decade and a half,[2] has two distinct purposes: one acts as a cosmetic procedure and the second is for the purpose of heightening sexual satisfaction. For the purpose of this paper I will be exploring vaginal rejuvenation’s cosmetic function, also known as a labiaplasty, and its cultural implications in the America.
Background
Vaginal rejuvenation (also known as “designer vaginas” or “Stepford vulvas”) is believed to be “the fastest growing emerging growth trend in cosmetic plastic surgery.”[1] This procedure, which has grown particularly popular in the past decade and a half,[2] has two distinct purposes: one acts as a cosmetic procedure and the second is for the purpose of heightening sexual satisfaction. For the purpose of this paper I will be exploring vaginal rejuvenation’s cosmetic function, also known as a labiaplasty, and its cultural implications in the America.
Male Sexuality in the Public Sphere
First it is important to note the difference of sexual socialization for men and women in order to understand what drives women to undergo such a surgery. Although it may be obvious that two different genders would experience sexual socialization in different manners, it should be noted how one common thread for the two is the subjection to omnipresent male objects in American society. From record-tall buildings to memorials and monuments, phallic objects are ubiquitous as American cultural symbols making male sexuality an accepted part of public discourse. Additionally one should consider the different locker room experiences women and men have in their teenage years since this, too, acts as an example of accepted openness to male sexuality in the public sphere. In the locker room teenage boys are exposed to one another’s sexual parts by default since their anatomy is external. Juxtaposed with the female locker room experience, women have fewer chances to discover sexual anatomy differences among other female peers since having internal sexual anatomy does not foster an environment for comparison. As one woman disclosed, “Penis is mainstream. Penis is in the movies, in museums, in all those enlargement and dysfunction ads. Vagina and vulva, however, are still under wraps….”[3] Therefore just as one’s parts are hidden so, too, is the knowledge that not every woman’s vagina looks the same. These cultural images and experiences create a society in which men are permitted to discuss/show/expect male physical heterogeneity while women live in a world of the unknown believing they must live up to a physical homogeneity fabricated by society’s assumptions.
First it is important to note the difference of sexual socialization for men and women in order to understand what drives women to undergo such a surgery. Although it may be obvious that two different genders would experience sexual socialization in different manners, it should be noted how one common thread for the two is the subjection to omnipresent male objects in American society. From record-tall buildings to memorials and monuments, phallic objects are ubiquitous as American cultural symbols making male sexuality an accepted part of public discourse. Additionally one should consider the different locker room experiences women and men have in their teenage years since this, too, acts as an example of accepted openness to male sexuality in the public sphere. In the locker room teenage boys are exposed to one another’s sexual parts by default since their anatomy is external. Juxtaposed with the female locker room experience, women have fewer chances to discover sexual anatomy differences among other female peers since having internal sexual anatomy does not foster an environment for comparison. As one woman disclosed, “Penis is mainstream. Penis is in the movies, in museums, in all those enlargement and dysfunction ads. Vagina and vulva, however, are still under wraps….”[3] Therefore just as one’s parts are hidden so, too, is the knowledge that not every woman’s vagina looks the same. These cultural images and experiences create a society in which men are permitted to discuss/show/expect male physical heterogeneity while women live in a world of the unknown believing they must live up to a physical homogeneity fabricated by society’s assumptions.
Living in the Dark leads to Assimilation
With women living experiences which do not nurture exploration or inquisition regarding their sexual body parts, they (along with men) are left to obtain ideal notions of how women’s genitals should look from aspects of culture which display this private sphere such as pornography: “Many doctors who perform the surgeries say the bulk of the women getting this surgery are pressured by men who want them to conform to the way women look in the pornography industry….”[4] Doctors have even reported their female patients bringing in pornographic magazines as the example for which they would like to model their own vaginas.[5] On the other hand there are doctors who admit that it is not women being pressured by men to get such a surgery, but it is the women who find the physical flaws in themselves in their private sphere attributing their dissatisfaction with themselves due to images they have seen in porn-related materials.[6] Regardless of who the doctors say are the ones pointing out the “flaws,” both narratives cite porn as a catalyst for the desire to alter one’s body. If porn has been created and consumed since the invention of cameras, then why has this obsession with perfecting one’s vagina become so popular? I postulate this trend is due to the proliferation of pornographic images in America’s mainstream society[7] in MTV music videos, reality television, easily accessible sexual content via youtube, and of course mainstream instances likened to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction.” These images are all instigators.
With women living experiences which do not nurture exploration or inquisition regarding their sexual body parts, they (along with men) are left to obtain ideal notions of how women’s genitals should look from aspects of culture which display this private sphere such as pornography: “Many doctors who perform the surgeries say the bulk of the women getting this surgery are pressured by men who want them to conform to the way women look in the pornography industry….”[4] Doctors have even reported their female patients bringing in pornographic magazines as the example for which they would like to model their own vaginas.[5] On the other hand there are doctors who admit that it is not women being pressured by men to get such a surgery, but it is the women who find the physical flaws in themselves in their private sphere attributing their dissatisfaction with themselves due to images they have seen in porn-related materials.[6] Regardless of who the doctors say are the ones pointing out the “flaws,” both narratives cite porn as a catalyst for the desire to alter one’s body. If porn has been created and consumed since the invention of cameras, then why has this obsession with perfecting one’s vagina become so popular? I postulate this trend is due to the proliferation of pornographic images in America’s mainstream society[7] in MTV music videos, reality television, easily accessible sexual content via youtube, and of course mainstream instances likened to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction.” These images are all instigators.
Vaginal Modification and Inclusion
This surgery also acts as a societal divider. While makeup and clothes previously acted as indicators of hierarchical class and therefore wealth, now it is this costly surgery (which is not usually covered by insurance companies) which filters the haves from the have-nots allowing affluent women to consume and perpetuate a narrow view of beauty in the private sphere.
So what if women spend their money on obtaining a “designer vagina” – what societal implications does this have other than women partaking in another cosmetic ritual which alters their natural state? If bodies are a political canvas on which we can adorn clothes, jewelry, etc. which make statements in the public sphere for others to consume and then evaluate about us, then modifications of one’s vagina in order to make it a “carbon copy”[8] of vagina seen in pornography (which is being well-lit with high-end production mechanisms and editing) is a political statement involving women voluntarily disposing of their personal uniqueness and therefore eliminating their political power.
TO-DO LIST:
1) Use the first person narratives of women who have received the surgery as evidence of the dual reasons for wanting the surgery (porn magazines, men/husband’s comments).
2) Incorporate Foucault more and Simone Davis more as my scholarly sources.
3) Expand more on the “So what?” aspect of “carbon copy” vaginas quieting women’s political power as they submit to altering themselves for the purpose of “beauty” in the private sphere.
4) Ask Katie if I need evidence (to cite a source) of the “locker room experience” and linking it to my paper OR is it okay to just use personal experience/knowledge to create links like these?
5) Also, are endnotes okay? Usually use MLA, but I will be citing a lot and do not want to make my paper look messy.
This surgery also acts as a societal divider. While makeup and clothes previously acted as indicators of hierarchical class and therefore wealth, now it is this costly surgery (which is not usually covered by insurance companies) which filters the haves from the have-nots allowing affluent women to consume and perpetuate a narrow view of beauty in the private sphere.
So what if women spend their money on obtaining a “designer vagina” – what societal implications does this have other than women partaking in another cosmetic ritual which alters their natural state? If bodies are a political canvas on which we can adorn clothes, jewelry, etc. which make statements in the public sphere for others to consume and then evaluate about us, then modifications of one’s vagina in order to make it a “carbon copy”[8] of vagina seen in pornography (which is being well-lit with high-end production mechanisms and editing) is a political statement involving women voluntarily disposing of their personal uniqueness and therefore eliminating their political power.
TO-DO LIST:
1) Use the first person narratives of women who have received the surgery as evidence of the dual reasons for wanting the surgery (porn magazines, men/husband’s comments).
2) Incorporate Foucault more and Simone Davis more as my scholarly sources.
3) Expand more on the “So what?” aspect of “carbon copy” vaginas quieting women’s political power as they submit to altering themselves for the purpose of “beauty” in the private sphere.
4) Ask Katie if I need evidence (to cite a source) of the “locker room experience” and linking it to my paper OR is it okay to just use personal experience/knowledge to create links like these?
5) Also, are endnotes okay? Usually use MLA, but I will be citing a lot and do not want to make my paper look messy.
[1] “Men Coerce Women into Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery,” Off Our Backs, 35: 9, January 2005.
[2] “More Women Seek Vaginal Plastic Surgery,” Sandy Kobrin, 4, November 2004.
[3] “A Vagina Owner’s Guide,” Paula Spencer, Health, April 2007.
[4] “Men Coerce Women into Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery,” Off Our Backs, 35: 9, January 2005.
[5] “Men Coerce Women into Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery,” Off Our Backs, 35: 9, January 2005.
[6] “A Vagina Owner’s Guide,” Paula Spencer, Health, April 2007.
[7] “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” Simone Weil Davis, Feminist Studies, Spring 2002.
[8] “Loose Lips Sink Ships,” Simone Weil Davis, Feminist Studies, Spring 2002.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Anne Moody and Consumption
The entire paper is not yet written because I didn't know if I was on the right track and didn't want to get too far in the writing process and have to go back to the drawing board.
“That summer I could feel myself beginning to change. For the first time I began to think something would be done about whites killing, beating, and misusing Negroes. I knew I was going to be a part of whatever happened.” – pg. 278
Anne Moody’s memoir Coming of Age in Mississippi depicts a Black woman struggling to determine her identity as she grows up in the segregated South. This journey of self-identity leads to her fascination with consumption and materialism throughout much of her younger years. Ultimately it is not her participation in consumption which aids in the discovery of who she is, but, instead, it is her collective action for the Movement (an intangible ritual) which leads to her strong foundation of her personal identity.
In the mid-twentieth century rural, American South, Essie Mae Moody (Anne) grows up in an atmosphere in which Whites solely make up the privileged class. One of her first jobs, doing chores for Miss Ola, subjects Moody to material items which she wholly admires: antebellum beds with grandiose bed posts, feather mattresses, an in-house bathroom with pristine white tubs, and rugs in the bathroom. Then Moody has another opportunity to witness upper-class white culture when she works for Mrs. Claiborne. There Moody learns to set a table and how to eat a “balanced meal” – both notions she knew nothing of before because her family was too poor to buy meat for dinner therefore they never owned knives since there was no need for such items. Miss Ola’s and Mrs. Claiborne’s lifestyles act as a foil to Moody’s life since her mother cannot even afford to feed her children and they must embarrassingly eat the same peanut butter and biscuits everyday for lunch. Throughout her childhood Moody notices how whites, the freest people within American society, have “things” and soon she links materialism with freedom. This epiphany contributes to her fascination with the tangible and consumption in her search for personal identity and ultimately personal freedom.
Moody’s left-out attitude is evident even as a child when she not only grows to dislike whites but also her own race: “But I also hated Negroes. I hate them for not standing up and doing something about the murders. In fact, I think I had stronger resentment toward Negroes for letting the whites kill them than toward the whites. Anyway it was at this stage in my life that I began to look upon Negro men as cowards” (Moody 136). These negative sentiments regarding her own culture signal to the reader that even as a child Moody feels alone and without a place to fit in since whites discriminate against her and the African American community seem to her spineless because they do not confront whites as she does even at an early age. Her courage to stand up to white privilege surfaces around the time she is tutoring Wayne, the same time when “separate but equal” was ruled unconstitutional but the Supreme Court. When Mrs. Burke inquires Moody’s stance on school integration she (unlike the “coward Negro men”) voices her thoughts. Here the reader sees foreshadowing of how defiant action brings to Moody a more solidified identity: “But courage was growing inside me too. Little by little it was getting harder and harder for me not to speak out.” (Moody 163).
This courage is soon overshadowed by her persistent loneliness: “Now I felt as though I was in a class all by myself, and I didn’t’ want it that way. I was lonesome” (Moody 182). In order to feel fulfilled Moody escapes her hometown bound for New Orleans in an attempt to escape such sentiments. There she begins to feel “human” and permits the transvestites to give her an external makeover with new clothes and different makeup which for a time alleviates her feelings of exclusion: “Most of my classmates and teachers commented on how I had changed and how good I looked” (Moody 199).
Once again attempting to escape her town (which signifies her loneliness), she moves in with her father. Upon her arrival Moody is again consumed with consumption in order distract her and fulfill her emptiness: “All that morning I was thinking about how I would fix my room up. I wanted to make it look just like the students’ rooms I had seen in magazines, with a single bed, a bookshelf filled with books, and a desk with a good lamp” (Moody 217). When she eventually does receive her bedroom furniture, she is disappointed because her stepmother purchases tacky furniture which lacks the modernity Moody aspires to have and consume.
When she is notified of her college acceptance at Natchez College, she spends.
“I bought only a few cheap clothes, and since I had always wanted a suitcase of my own, I splurged on a three-piece eighteen-dollar luggage” – pg. 238 The luggage eventually comes apart at the seams. This miniature narrative seems as a microcosm for all the times purchasing something to feel better had failed Moody throughout her memoir: “I felt like I had been wounded and that what was showing through that hole was my own insides.” – pg. 239
When she then attends Tougaloo she becomes anxiety-ridden because for the first time, she has a white teacher: “I began to get scared all over again. I had never had a white teacher. Now I wished I had gone to L.S.U. I knew the whites in New Orleans weren’t’ half as bad as the ones in Mississippi […] I got so damn mad just sitting there thinking about those white teachers, chills started running down my back.” Again to ease her anxiety, Moody turns to the tangible and the physically external: “I started taking time with my clothes, watching my weight, and wanting to look good” – pg. 269
Only when she begins to participate in The Movement any focus on consumption goes on hiatus. Instead her collective action for such a cause gives her meaning in her life: “I had a good excuse to stay on campus for the summer and work with the Movement, and this was what I really wanted to do.” – pg. 287
“But something happened to me as I got more and more involved in the Movement. It no longer seemed important to prove anything. I had found something outside myself that gave meaning to my life.” – pg. 288
INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THE PLACES IN WHICH THESE SIT-INS OCCURRED (in the Woolworth’s) ARE ALSO PHYSICAL SITES OF CONSUMPTION – here Moody imbues a different meaning to these sites of consumption with her Movement work.
For the duration of the memoir Moody’s consumption is only to serve others or to help the Movement. Consumption also takes on a different meaning for Moody when she uses her money to help others instead of buying things for herself. In chapter 25, she buys school clothes, school supplies, and a day’s lunch for two girls who were living the life she had endured as a child. – pg. 342
WHAT DOES MOODY WANT THE READER TO THINK OF THE ISSUES IN HER MEMOIR?
Her memoir’s ending leaves the reader hanging and for a good reason. It connotes that her search for self (similar to the Movement) does not have a tidy, succinct finale. The conclusion could not have a decisive end because its preceding content is entirely too complex. Such an ending – or lack thereof – acts as a literary foil to the memoir’s major theme of consumption. Unlike a purchase (in which the experience is unilateral as a consumer pays for an item and the experience of consumption ends there) the Movement and Moody’s life are much more multifaceted and therefore cannot easily be summed up for the reader.
Her book also serves as anecdotal evidence that those participating in the democratic ritual of consumption does not help to buy one’s acceptance into a hierarchal society. Ironically Moody spends a major portion of her younger years consumed with consumption, and ultimately it is the intangible – the collective action involved in the Movement – which augments her sense of self.
“That summer I could feel myself beginning to change. For the first time I began to think something would be done about whites killing, beating, and misusing Negroes. I knew I was going to be a part of whatever happened.” – pg. 278
Anne Moody’s memoir Coming of Age in Mississippi depicts a Black woman struggling to determine her identity as she grows up in the segregated South. This journey of self-identity leads to her fascination with consumption and materialism throughout much of her younger years. Ultimately it is not her participation in consumption which aids in the discovery of who she is, but, instead, it is her collective action for the Movement (an intangible ritual) which leads to her strong foundation of her personal identity.
In the mid-twentieth century rural, American South, Essie Mae Moody (Anne) grows up in an atmosphere in which Whites solely make up the privileged class. One of her first jobs, doing chores for Miss Ola, subjects Moody to material items which she wholly admires: antebellum beds with grandiose bed posts, feather mattresses, an in-house bathroom with pristine white tubs, and rugs in the bathroom. Then Moody has another opportunity to witness upper-class white culture when she works for Mrs. Claiborne. There Moody learns to set a table and how to eat a “balanced meal” – both notions she knew nothing of before because her family was too poor to buy meat for dinner therefore they never owned knives since there was no need for such items. Miss Ola’s and Mrs. Claiborne’s lifestyles act as a foil to Moody’s life since her mother cannot even afford to feed her children and they must embarrassingly eat the same peanut butter and biscuits everyday for lunch. Throughout her childhood Moody notices how whites, the freest people within American society, have “things” and soon she links materialism with freedom. This epiphany contributes to her fascination with the tangible and consumption in her search for personal identity and ultimately personal freedom.
Moody’s left-out attitude is evident even as a child when she not only grows to dislike whites but also her own race: “But I also hated Negroes. I hate them for not standing up and doing something about the murders. In fact, I think I had stronger resentment toward Negroes for letting the whites kill them than toward the whites. Anyway it was at this stage in my life that I began to look upon Negro men as cowards” (Moody 136). These negative sentiments regarding her own culture signal to the reader that even as a child Moody feels alone and without a place to fit in since whites discriminate against her and the African American community seem to her spineless because they do not confront whites as she does even at an early age. Her courage to stand up to white privilege surfaces around the time she is tutoring Wayne, the same time when “separate but equal” was ruled unconstitutional but the Supreme Court. When Mrs. Burke inquires Moody’s stance on school integration she (unlike the “coward Negro men”) voices her thoughts. Here the reader sees foreshadowing of how defiant action brings to Moody a more solidified identity: “But courage was growing inside me too. Little by little it was getting harder and harder for me not to speak out.” (Moody 163).
This courage is soon overshadowed by her persistent loneliness: “Now I felt as though I was in a class all by myself, and I didn’t’ want it that way. I was lonesome” (Moody 182). In order to feel fulfilled Moody escapes her hometown bound for New Orleans in an attempt to escape such sentiments. There she begins to feel “human” and permits the transvestites to give her an external makeover with new clothes and different makeup which for a time alleviates her feelings of exclusion: “Most of my classmates and teachers commented on how I had changed and how good I looked” (Moody 199).
Once again attempting to escape her town (which signifies her loneliness), she moves in with her father. Upon her arrival Moody is again consumed with consumption in order distract her and fulfill her emptiness: “All that morning I was thinking about how I would fix my room up. I wanted to make it look just like the students’ rooms I had seen in magazines, with a single bed, a bookshelf filled with books, and a desk with a good lamp” (Moody 217). When she eventually does receive her bedroom furniture, she is disappointed because her stepmother purchases tacky furniture which lacks the modernity Moody aspires to have and consume.
When she is notified of her college acceptance at Natchez College, she spends.
“I bought only a few cheap clothes, and since I had always wanted a suitcase of my own, I splurged on a three-piece eighteen-dollar luggage” – pg. 238 The luggage eventually comes apart at the seams. This miniature narrative seems as a microcosm for all the times purchasing something to feel better had failed Moody throughout her memoir: “I felt like I had been wounded and that what was showing through that hole was my own insides.” – pg. 239
When she then attends Tougaloo she becomes anxiety-ridden because for the first time, she has a white teacher: “I began to get scared all over again. I had never had a white teacher. Now I wished I had gone to L.S.U. I knew the whites in New Orleans weren’t’ half as bad as the ones in Mississippi […] I got so damn mad just sitting there thinking about those white teachers, chills started running down my back.” Again to ease her anxiety, Moody turns to the tangible and the physically external: “I started taking time with my clothes, watching my weight, and wanting to look good” – pg. 269
Only when she begins to participate in The Movement any focus on consumption goes on hiatus. Instead her collective action for such a cause gives her meaning in her life: “I had a good excuse to stay on campus for the summer and work with the Movement, and this was what I really wanted to do.” – pg. 287
“But something happened to me as I got more and more involved in the Movement. It no longer seemed important to prove anything. I had found something outside myself that gave meaning to my life.” – pg. 288
INTERESTING TO NOTE THAT THE PLACES IN WHICH THESE SIT-INS OCCURRED (in the Woolworth’s) ARE ALSO PHYSICAL SITES OF CONSUMPTION – here Moody imbues a different meaning to these sites of consumption with her Movement work.
For the duration of the memoir Moody’s consumption is only to serve others or to help the Movement. Consumption also takes on a different meaning for Moody when she uses her money to help others instead of buying things for herself. In chapter 25, she buys school clothes, school supplies, and a day’s lunch for two girls who were living the life she had endured as a child. – pg. 342
WHAT DOES MOODY WANT THE READER TO THINK OF THE ISSUES IN HER MEMOIR?
Her memoir’s ending leaves the reader hanging and for a good reason. It connotes that her search for self (similar to the Movement) does not have a tidy, succinct finale. The conclusion could not have a decisive end because its preceding content is entirely too complex. Such an ending – or lack thereof – acts as a literary foil to the memoir’s major theme of consumption. Unlike a purchase (in which the experience is unilateral as a consumer pays for an item and the experience of consumption ends there) the Movement and Moody’s life are much more multifaceted and therefore cannot easily be summed up for the reader.
Her book also serves as anecdotal evidence that those participating in the democratic ritual of consumption does not help to buy one’s acceptance into a hierarchal society. Ironically Moody spends a major portion of her younger years consumed with consumption, and ultimately it is the intangible – the collective action involved in the Movement – which augments her sense of self.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Paper 3 -- Women's Individualism Surfaces Only When They Serve The Group (a.ka. White Men)
One collective mantra of American life in the Thirties was that of belonging to a community. During his Commonwealth Club Address, President Franklin Roosevelt acknowledged this theme in American culture and expounded how such a way of life could alleviate the ills of The Depression. In his address Roosevelt outlined how each person doing some action to help “the group” would in turn secure individualism and individual liberties. Popular visuals of the time such as: Gold Diggers of 1933, “Security of the Family” photograph, and The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter documentary all act as examples in which individualism was achieved only after each person somehow served the group. However, with a more discerning eye, it is the women in these three examples whose individualism is most dynamic since their individualism is granted only after they have served not necessarily ‘the group,’ but instead, men and particularly white men.
As Warren Susman describes in “The Culture of the Thirties,” the notion of “culture” was not invented nor discovered in the Thirties. Instead, for the first time in American history, culture seemed to bind the nation together as its images (via Gallup polls, radio shows, movies, political rhetoric, photographs, murals, etc.) led citizens to believe they shared a unifying existence known as an American Way of Life (Susman 156). Susman also discusses how the Thirties was the era of sound and how such a tool “helped mold uniform national responses [and] helped create or reinforce uniform national values and beliefs in a way that no previous medium had ever done before” (Susman 159). This medium was not merely used to disseminate information about the latest advertisements for neither lipstick nor home appliances (to heighten consumerism) nor even the latest radio soap operas. This powerful medium was also used as a venue for people like President Franklin Roosevelt whose use of the radio gave him a “new kind of political and social power” (Susman 159).
Roosevelt’s social power led him to speak at the Commonwealth Club in Chicago in 1932 where he addressed his political platform in contrast to then rival Herbert Hoover. While Hoover emphasized Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives would negatively affect individual freedoms, a long-treasured liberty in American history, Roosevelt linked Jeffersonian Democracy (in which the people come together to self-govern in order to preserve individual freedom) to the success of the New Deal in which all would come together in order to preserve each person’s right to property and liberation from hard times despite the obstacles of The Depression. Alluding to Jeffersonian Democracy in his speech by default linked Hoover’s ideas to Hamilton Democracy in which an elite group manages the country, as Roosevelt claims the “financial Titans” of the Thirties did which led to the economic downturn of The Depression. Associating Hoover with these corporate monoliths only reinforced Roosevelt as being the “good guy” and encouraged people (just as they would do in Jeffersonian Democracy) to unite and work together in order to prosper individually.
Many media outlets of the Thirties reinforced Roosevelt’s theory of assisting the group in turn ensures personal success, and three examples include: Gold Diggers of 1933, “Security of the Family” photograph, and The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter documentary. In each the individual works to help the group in order to secure their individualism. Specifically, the “individuals” participating in this collectivism ritual in these media works are women. In these pieces, the women gain any type of individualism only after they have worked not for the general public but for a more specific cohort – men.
In Gold Diggers of 1933, Carol, Trixie, and Polly work often in theatrical productions – a group oriented occupation. Through their obstacle of finding a theatre job during The Depression, they eventually find a gig where they are chorus girls. Voluntarily, these women allow their bodies to be de-individualized in order to augment the sensationally large-scale Busby Berkeley choreography. Through the process of giving their individual bodies for the sake of Barney Hopkin’s show, funded by another man – Brad Roberts, and technologically run by an all-male tech crew, each woman eventually surfaces as an individual further proving that the notion of individuals working for the larger group really meant working for white males.
In “Security of the Family,” the woman is the central focus as she is the erect figure standing in the middle of the painting. Her placement in the picture seems to connote that the entire family depends on her nurturing and maternal efforts towards them. Looking more closely at the picture, though, her gaze is solely on her husband and her matriarchal power diminishes as her glance implies that she is looking to a more powerful figure in the painting – the man. Through serving her husband and family in the form of motherhood, the woman’s individualism as the “star” of the picture emerges however without serving her husband and his patriarchal crew her individualistic power would cease to exist in this painting.
Finally, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” documentary also acts as an example of how women’s individualism could only surface if they served the hegemonic group of white males. Often in the documentary the women of the “hidden ranks” claimed that they enjoyed the hard, long work days because they were doing it together – they were working as a group. Their efforts towards building aircrafts, ammunition, and ships in the shipyards were very fulfilling because the women were working toward a common goal – to build the things necessary for “the group” (a.k.a white men) to win the war abroad. In one of the short reels (which would air before a movie in the theatres), one woman’s individual story was told, but only because she was working to help the men in the war. She claimed that her work for the war effort saved her from being an “old maid” since she was now serving thousands of men abroad.
WILL PUT IN MORE EXAMPLES FROM ROSIE AND NEED CONCLUSION
As Warren Susman describes in “The Culture of the Thirties,” the notion of “culture” was not invented nor discovered in the Thirties. Instead, for the first time in American history, culture seemed to bind the nation together as its images (via Gallup polls, radio shows, movies, political rhetoric, photographs, murals, etc.) led citizens to believe they shared a unifying existence known as an American Way of Life (Susman 156). Susman also discusses how the Thirties was the era of sound and how such a tool “helped mold uniform national responses [and] helped create or reinforce uniform national values and beliefs in a way that no previous medium had ever done before” (Susman 159). This medium was not merely used to disseminate information about the latest advertisements for neither lipstick nor home appliances (to heighten consumerism) nor even the latest radio soap operas. This powerful medium was also used as a venue for people like President Franklin Roosevelt whose use of the radio gave him a “new kind of political and social power” (Susman 159).
Roosevelt’s social power led him to speak at the Commonwealth Club in Chicago in 1932 where he addressed his political platform in contrast to then rival Herbert Hoover. While Hoover emphasized Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives would negatively affect individual freedoms, a long-treasured liberty in American history, Roosevelt linked Jeffersonian Democracy (in which the people come together to self-govern in order to preserve individual freedom) to the success of the New Deal in which all would come together in order to preserve each person’s right to property and liberation from hard times despite the obstacles of The Depression. Alluding to Jeffersonian Democracy in his speech by default linked Hoover’s ideas to Hamilton Democracy in which an elite group manages the country, as Roosevelt claims the “financial Titans” of the Thirties did which led to the economic downturn of The Depression. Associating Hoover with these corporate monoliths only reinforced Roosevelt as being the “good guy” and encouraged people (just as they would do in Jeffersonian Democracy) to unite and work together in order to prosper individually.
Many media outlets of the Thirties reinforced Roosevelt’s theory of assisting the group in turn ensures personal success, and three examples include: Gold Diggers of 1933, “Security of the Family” photograph, and The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter documentary. In each the individual works to help the group in order to secure their individualism. Specifically, the “individuals” participating in this collectivism ritual in these media works are women. In these pieces, the women gain any type of individualism only after they have worked not for the general public but for a more specific cohort – men.
In Gold Diggers of 1933, Carol, Trixie, and Polly work often in theatrical productions – a group oriented occupation. Through their obstacle of finding a theatre job during The Depression, they eventually find a gig where they are chorus girls. Voluntarily, these women allow their bodies to be de-individualized in order to augment the sensationally large-scale Busby Berkeley choreography. Through the process of giving their individual bodies for the sake of Barney Hopkin’s show, funded by another man – Brad Roberts, and technologically run by an all-male tech crew, each woman eventually surfaces as an individual further proving that the notion of individuals working for the larger group really meant working for white males.
In “Security of the Family,” the woman is the central focus as she is the erect figure standing in the middle of the painting. Her placement in the picture seems to connote that the entire family depends on her nurturing and maternal efforts towards them. Looking more closely at the picture, though, her gaze is solely on her husband and her matriarchal power diminishes as her glance implies that she is looking to a more powerful figure in the painting – the man. Through serving her husband and family in the form of motherhood, the woman’s individualism as the “star” of the picture emerges however without serving her husband and his patriarchal crew her individualistic power would cease to exist in this painting.
Finally, The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” documentary also acts as an example of how women’s individualism could only surface if they served the hegemonic group of white males. Often in the documentary the women of the “hidden ranks” claimed that they enjoyed the hard, long work days because they were doing it together – they were working as a group. Their efforts towards building aircrafts, ammunition, and ships in the shipyards were very fulfilling because the women were working toward a common goal – to build the things necessary for “the group” (a.k.a white men) to win the war abroad. In one of the short reels (which would air before a movie in the theatres), one woman’s individual story was told, but only because she was working to help the men in the war. She claimed that her work for the war effort saved her from being an “old maid” since she was now serving thousands of men abroad.
WILL PUT IN MORE EXAMPLES FROM ROSIE AND NEED CONCLUSION
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