(This
piece was first published in The
Age
Opinion, 27 Oct 2006, p19
as 'Are Wrinkles Really All that Ugly?')
In parts of Papua
New Guinea there is said to be a dreaded curse that a witch may put
on an enemy to make her breasts stay pert and upright, like a young
girl's, forever.
However, for the
customers of the beauty surgeons, portrayed on Jonathan Holmes' documentary
'Buyer of Beauty Beware' (Four Corners, ABC-TV, 23 October),
pertness and youth is the dream and the promise. As Dr Josef Goldbaum
neatly explains, 'We don't have to accept what nature throws at us.'
For Meredith Jones,
who interviewed plastic surgery patients and their surgeons for her
PhD and forthcoming book, cosmetic surgery is just one aspect of contemporary
'Makeover Culture'. Within an ethic that approves working on the self,
improvement is regarded as labour rather than vanity, and a commodity
for which one shops (and if wise, shops around).
For in the modern,
privatised notion of the body -- where the 'civilised thrust' (as an
anthropologist once put it) has replaced the 'primitive droop' - body
and mind are separate realms. Flesh is 'nature', passive and inert,
and thus is not only open to being manipulated and controlled by a sovereign
mind, but is in need of such control.
As such, our bodies
- like our houses and land - have become a personal capital, to be invested
in, worked and improved. It's all about managing your assets, and having
botox injections in your twenties and thirties becomes a kind of cosmetic
superannuation, to protect you from the less bountiful experience of
old age. Surely something every good citizen should consider and, if
they can afford, take out.
However with the
body seen as an ongoing project and investment, there can also be a
recurring and sometimes permanent sense of incompleteness.
We keep adding to
it - clothing, hair dye, accessories, push up bras, tattoos, piercings,
more clothes, newer clothes, less clothes, muscle building. And we keep
taking away: dieting, liposuction, depilation. (Peering into the fridge
late at night: if only I can find the right thing to put into it…
Maybe this chocolate ice-cream?)
Indeed for all our
manipulation, modification and adornment of bodies in the name of individualism,
greater pleasure, aesthetic delight, choice, personal freedom and power,
we seem to be in the midst of an incredible epidemic of body loathing.
And while, as Holmes
points out in his documentary, the surveys show the overwhelming majority
of recipients of cosmetic procedures such as breast enhancement are
delighted with their results, what of those (usually around ten percent)
who aren't?
It might be fine
if they were merely not so happy, or indifferent. But a quick look at
websites such as Silicone
Holocaust (with a picture
gallery not for the faint-hearted) suggests the kind of long-term
physical and emotional devastation for this minority that should make
all of us alarmed.
It's also worth
noting that these surveys, conducted by the plastic surgery industry,
usually only have a short follow-up period: months, rather than years.
On the home makeover programs, almost everyone is ecstatic when they
walk through that door and see their new improved and redesigned space
- the glossy paint and clean fabrics, the shiny neat surfaces and bold
colours. But I often wonder what it's like to live long-term with these
quick fixes.
Sometimes, I'm sure
it's wonderful. Life-changing. And I'm certainly not immune to the seductive
lure of modern uncluttered style -- or of slim bodies and smooth skin.
But if I had the
money to furnish my house any way I wanted, what would I pick? And if
I called in a makeover team, what might I lose?
I love my house,
and my house loves me. And while there are things I would like to improve,
I'd actually like to keep the current style in which a creative use
of old and found things figures strongly. I've learnt to find a peaceful
balance between beauty, practicality and comfort -- even to see beauty
within functionality. I've learnt to find an aesthetic that values difference
and variation; one that easily accommodates change and use; that recognises
the difference between looking new (or young) and looking good.
If it is possible
to cultivate a home furnishing aesthetic that appreciates the rich effects
of time and brings both peace and pleasure - one where the patina of
age, the scratches and marks of usage are a part of the beauty and story
of an object - can it really be so impossible to do this with regard
to our bodies?
If leather can become
more beloved, and more sensuous, with age, why not skin?
As the beautiful
Italian actress Anna Magnani once said to a photographer: 'Please don't
retouch my wrinkles, it took me so long to earn them.'
*
Beth
Spencer has recently completed a PhD on
The Body as Fiction / Fiction as a
Way of Thinking
at the University of Ballarat.
www.bethspencer.com/beautyculture.html
