Media, Cosmetic Surgery and Aspirational Beauty Aesthetics of the Ageing Body in South Korea

ABSTRACT

This article examines how thinking about technologies of the body and beauty outside mainstream youth-focussed discourses complicates prevalent media arguments that posit aesthetic preferences in South Korean society as primarily driven by a desire to radically alter or to “Westernise” Korean bodies. This article draws on in-depth qualitative interview data, examining aspirational beauty aesthetics of a sample of 20 urban Korean women between the ages of 64 and 93. The participants were asked to reflect on the visual presence of the ageing bodies of celebrities in contemporary Korean popular culture, and to consider how this corresponded with the interviewees’ own aesthetic preferences and practices in later life. The findings illustrate how images of older celebrities are read and consumed by participants, who, rather than yearning for an unobtainable “fountain of youth”, actively identify with and aspire to beauty ideals that are considered both fashionable and age-specific. An analysis of the participants’ narratives of beauty, celebrity beauty and care of self illustrates the important role that beauty work plays in ageing women’s everyday lives as a tool to maintain social etiquette, design ageing, and maintain age-specific aspirational appearances.

KEYWORDS:

• Korea
• ageing
• beauty
• media
• cosmetic surgery
• aspiration

Acknowledgments

Approval to conduct this research was provided by the University of Western Australia, in accordance with its ethics review and approval procedures. I thank Jinah Lee for her help during the field research for this project. I also thank the editors of this special issue for their suggestions on an earlier version of this article, and the two anonymous reviewers for their comments, which helped to improve and clarify arguments made in this article.

Notes

1. It should be noted here that none of the participants disclosed negative experiences of cosmetic surgery or beauty treatment, and as such their views should not be taken as representative of the entire nation’s perceptions of surgery.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant from the Academy of Korean Studies (Grant Number AKS-2014-R41).