Amending the Abject Body

Deborah Caslav Covino

Description

Feminist theorists have often argued that aesthetic surgeries and body makeovers dehumanize and disempower women patients, whose efforts at self-improvement lead to their objectification. Amending the Abject Body proposes that although objectification is an important element in this phenomenon, the explosive growth of "makeover culture" can be understood as a process of both abjection (ridding ourselves of the unwanted) and identification (joining the community of what Julia Kristeva calls "clean and proper bodies"). Drawing from the advertisement and advocacy of body makeovers on television, in aesthetic surgery trade books, and in the print and Web-based marketing of face lifts, tummy tucks, and Botox injections, Deborah Caslav Covino articulates the relationship among objectification, abjection, and identification, and offers a fuller understanding of contemporary beauty-desire.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Objectification and False Consciousness
Abjection, Agency, and Identification

1. Abjection

Pain
Communication and Expulsion
Transgression, Identification, and Community

2. Normalizing the Body

The Scar
Body Loathing
Industry Success

3. Outside-In

4. "I'm Doing It for Me"

"Ana’s Aloha Body"
"Fatima's Flawless Nose"
"Light in Jodi's Eyes"

5. Making Over Abjection

Positive Thinking
Updating and Upgrading
Freedom of Choice
Passing
Happy Aging

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Sujets

• English articles
• Popular culture
• The
• Gender studies

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791484333
• Langue: English

Extrait

Amending the Abject Body 

SUNY series in Feminist Criticism and Theory Michelle A. Massé, editor

Amending the Abject Body

Aesthetic Makeovers in Medicine and Culture



DEBORAH CASLAV COVINO

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written per- mission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246

Production, Kelli Williams Marketing, Anne Valentine

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Covino, Deborah Caslav, 1960– Amending the abject body: aesthetic makeovers in medicine and culture/Deborah Caslav Covino. p. cm. —(SUNY series in feminist criticism and theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6231-5 —ISBN 0-7914-6232-3 (pbk.) 1. Body image in women. 2. Self-perception in women. 3. Women—Physiology. 4. Body, Human—Social aspects. 5. Surgery, Plastic. 6. Feminist theory. I. Title. II. Series.

BF697 .5B63C67 2004 306.4’613—dc22

2004043372

TO BILL, MY HEART’S CONTENT

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Chapter 3:

Chapter 4:

Contents

Objectification and False Consciousness Abjection, Agency, and Identification Abjection Pain Communication and Expulsion Transgression, Identification, and Community Normalizing the Body The Scar Body Loathing Industry Success Universal Beauty OutsideIn

“I’m Doing It for Me”

“Ana’s Aloha Body” “Fatima’s Flawless Nose” “Light in Jodi’s Eyes”

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i

x

1 6 11 17 22 25 28 35 36 39 42 46 55

65 73 75 78

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Contents

Chapter 5:

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Making Over Abjection Positive Thinking Updating and Upgrading Freedom of Choice Passing Happy Aging

83 84 86 87 93 97 105

113

137

149

Acknowledgments

For their early support, I am grateful to my teachers and mentors at the University of Illinois at Chicago: Clark Hulse, Peggy McCracken, James Sosnoski, Michael Lieb, and Donald Marshall. The Department of English at Florida Atlantic University provided me the time and encouragement so essential to this project. James Peltz, Kelli Williams, and the SUNY Press staff have guided this project through with understanding, good advice, and care. I’m especially grateful to my children, Lexie and Danny, for giving up part of their mother to the demands of scholarship. Love and thanks to my mother, Brigitte Caslav, who taught me compassion, and to my father, Peter Caslav, who has the soul of a writer. Finally, thanks to Dan Cook for frequent talks about Bruce Springsteen and assorted other (less important) matters that afforded me many hours of happy distraction. Portions of chapter 3 were adapted from “Outside-In: Body, Mind, and Self in the Advertisement of Aesthetic Surgery,” which appeared in the Journal of Popular Culture35.3 (Winter 2001). Portions of the introduction and chapter 1 were adapted from “Abject Criticism,” which appeared in Genders32 (2000).

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