Transforming Bodies
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Transforming Bodies Makeovers and Monstrosities in American Culture Heike Steinhoff Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Heike Steinhoff 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-49378-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-69713-7 ISBN 978-1-137-49379-8 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9781137493798 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steinhoff, Heike. Transforming bodies: makeovers and monstrosities in American culture / Heike Steinhoff. pages cm Summary: At the turn of the twenty-first century, American media abound with images and narratives of bodily transformations. Transforming Bodies investigates how these representations have become key sites for the negotiation of power. Focusing on the representations of extreme forms of somatic transformations, particularly cosmetic surgery, this book examines iconic popular cultural texts from diverse media and genres. The reality TV show The Swan, the TV drama series Nip/Tuck, Chuck Palahniuk s (post-)postmodern novels Invisible Monsters and Invisible Monsters Remix, and Scott Westerfeld s young adult fiction series Uglies are read as expressions of the heterogeneous biopolitical discourses that are articulated in the American mediascape. In contemporary American culture, representations of body transformations are often part of a makeover paradigm that presents bodies as beautiful, individual and improved if they adhere to normative constructions of gender, sexuality, class, race/ethnicity, and able-bodiedness. However, Transforming Bodies demonstrates that a number of popular cultural texts take up narrative structures, representational strategies and ideological underpinnings of makeover culture in order to re-write them. These texts link makeovers to images, practices and narratives of monstrosity and thereby challenge cultural norms. At the crossroads of American, cultural, literary, media, gender, queer, disability and governmentality studies, the book presents a timely intervention into critical debates on body transformations and contemporary makeover culture. Provided by publisher. 1. Human body in mass media. 2. Body image. 3. Human body Social aspects United States. 4. Reality television programs United States. I. Title. BF697.5.B63S74 2015 306.4'613 dc23 2015003642 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments vii viii Before 1 Transforming Bodies: An Introduction 3 2 Body Thoughts: Transforming Bodies in the New Body Theories 14 Transforming bodies in academic thought 15 Feminism, bodies, and their (trans)formations 18 Subjects, bodies, and power from a Foucauldian perspective 21 Technologies of the self, (neoliberal) governmentality, and (textual) agency 25 Monstrous bodies and the (trans)formation of the norm 29 Somatechnics and the transformations of somatic selves 34 Transformations 3 Extreme Makeovers: Transforming Bodies in Popular Culture 41 Magical-biological metamorphoses 41 (Surgical) Makeover culture 44 (Surgical) Makeover reality television 47 Gendered bodies on the surgical makeover television show The Swan 52 (De)Stabilizing gender on makeover television 59 Self-transformations, authentic becoming, and neoliberal governmentality 62 Post-feminist Swans 70 Makeover, the social body, and Americanness 73 Preliminary conclusions 79 Re-reading The Swan 82 4 Monstrous Makeovers: Somatechnics of Resistance in Postmodern Consumer Culture Chuck Palahniuk s Invisible Monsters 86 Monstrous self-transformations 86 Invisible Monsters in the context of contemporary fiction and scholarly criticism 89 v
vi Contents A world of hyperreality and consumer culture 93 Exposing the (body) politics of beauty and makeover culture 98 Monstrous makeover and self-destruction as self-construction 107 Arts of existence and the politics of the (in)visibility of the mutilated body 114 Makeover s monstrous excess and the politics of the transgender body 121 Monstrous bodies and monstrous texts 129 5 Troubling Subjects: Beauty, Plastic Surgery, and (Non-)Normative Bodies in Cosmetic Surgery Culture FX s Nip/Tuck 134 Dissecting Nip/Tuck 134 Nip/Tuck in its media context and in critical studies 140 Surgical identities: the self as somatic project 145 Femininity, beauty, and surgical makeover culture 151 Masculinity, beauty, and surgical makeover culture 156 Nip/Tuck s feminist voice 159 Monstrous bodies monstrous others 161 Monstrosity underneath the perfect façade 170 Monstrous body modifications 175 Dissecting boundaries 182 6 Modifying Teens: Coming of Age in a Dystopian World of Beauty Scott Westerfeld s Uglies Series 185 Dystopia of beauty 185 The Uglies series in the context of youth (in) literature and makeover culture 187 Makeover as ( failed ) initiation 190 Opposing the makeover: transforming identity and narratives 202 Practicing somatechnics of resistance 213 Body modification, environmentalism, and cultural democracy 222 Arrival and setting out again 232 After 7 Final Suture and New Before: A Conclusion 237 Works Cited 248 Index 264
List of Figures 3.1 The Swan candidate Delisa is visually fragmented. 53 3.2 The candidate s body rotates like an avatar in the selection scene of a computer game. 54 5.1 A red pen marks the breast of a mannequin in the opening sequence of Nip/Tuck. 135 5.2 Open boxes with mannequins in the opening sequence of Nip/Tuck. 137 5.3 A mannequin in front of a skyline of houses built along a beach in the opening sequence of Nip/Tuck. 138 5.4 The abject bodily spectacle of surgery in Nip/Tuck. 176 vii
Acknowledgments This book, which originated as my doctoral dissertation at the Ruhr- University Bochum, could not have been completed without the support of a number of people. Foremost I want to thank my doctoral advisor, Prof. Dr. Kornelia Freitag, for her continuous support, guidance, and confidence. I am particularly thankful not only for her textual feedback and helpful suggestions, but also for the freedom she gave me to explore this project. Many thanks also to my second supervisor, Prof. Dr. Eva Warth, who sparked my interest in makeover culture and whose comments on this project have always inspired me. Moreover, I am deeply grateful to my colleague and friend, Dr. Evangelia Kindinger, who walked this road with me. Dr. Katharina Vester has always been a source of scholarly guidance and moral support and I thank her for both. A number of scholars, colleagues, and friends provided me with material, ideas, and invaluable scholarly feedback at different stages of this project. I particularly want to thank: Dr. Elisa Edwards, Julia Eckel, Verena Peters, Hanna Surma, Selma Bidlingmaier, Sven Lutzka, Anne Weiler, Prof. Dr. Simon Dickel, Prof. Dr. Stefan Brandt, Prof. Dr. Miriam Strube, Prof. Dr. Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, and Prof. Dr. Bernadette Wegenstein. I also want to thank the RUB Research School and the Rector s Office of the Ruhr-University Bochum for research and travel grants. Many thanks also to the doctoral students and professors of the American/English studies and media studies departments at Ruhr-University Bochum, Technical University Dortmund, and Duisburg-Essen University, as well as my students at Ruhr-University Bochum whom I asked to read many of the texts discussed in this book and who were willing to share their thoughts on them with me. This study is, of course, also indebted to all those scholars and authors who inspired me through their writings, many of whom are mentioned in this book. I would also like to thank the team at Palgrave Macmillan for their support and professional advice throughout the publishing process. My biggest debt of gratitude is to my parents, my sister, and my grandparents for their tireless love, confidence, patience, and support. This book is dedicated to you. viii
Acknowledgments ix Finally, and most specially, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to my partner Pierre, who transformed me and my life in more ways than I could name. I thank him for his love, care, humor, and, foremost, for sharing with me his passion for life.