US Repertoires in a Changing Surgical Landscape

Abstract

This chapter examines changes in the social meanings of cosmetic surgery in the US. It does so by comparing American women’s narratives of the practice collected at two points in time — 1995–1997 and 2007. The chapter draws on interview material presented in earlier sections of the book, using that material to different ends and emphasizing different points. Overall, my data speak not simply to the greater presence of cosmetic surgery in American culture, but also to its increasing normalization. As I will discuss here, some American accounts that were common in the mid-1990s — such as those in which the speaker explains cosmetic surgery as a means of aligning the outer body with an ‘authentic’ inner self — are less prevalent in the early 21st century. Other accounts, like those which justify aesthetic procedures as necessary for professional longevity and/or a reflection of autonomous choice, have become more commonplace. And in rather fewer instances, entirely new accounts which extol the beauty of the obviously modified, ‘unnatural’ body (such as those described briefly in Chapter 5) have emerged.