Media-bodies and screen-births: Cosmetic surgery reality television

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Notes

1. Bernadette Wegenstein argues that body criticism must be part of media criticism because of the ‘mutual dependence upon and influence of body and mediation’ (2006, 121). For her, discussions and analyses of the body are only meaningful alongside examinations of those media that comprise embodiment.

2. Hybridity, especially in relation to public/private space, is an important feature of much reality television. Scott McQuire writes that ‘The fact that the primary scene of action in Big Brother is a hybrid television studio fashioned as a domestic dwelling – a “home” in which people live while being watched by others – brings into focus many issues raised by the increasing mediatisation of what was formerly private space’ (2003, 103).

3. Orlan, one of the most interesting artists who has worked with cosmetic surgery, produced a work in 1964 called ‘Orlan gives birth to herself, and she loves herself.’ The work, a photograph of a nude Orlan coupled with an androgynous mannequin torso, pre-dates the themes of Orlan's later work on the body as modifiable object.

4. For example, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) is a benign love story between a ‘real’ character and a film character who steps out of his movie into the world. In John McTiernan's Last Action Hero (1993), characters are transported between the movie world and the real world.

5. ‘Mommy Makeovers’ usually combine ‘tummy tucks’ (abdominoplasties) with breast lifting or augmentation, liposuction, and sometimes even vaginaplasty. See ‘Rodeo Drive Mommy Makeover’ at http://www.rodeodrivemommymakeover.com/

6. Many thanks to one of my referees who pointed out that in fact lesbians and gay men do exist on CSRTV: lesbians are described as tomboys unable to express their ‘real’ femininity, while many of the fashion consultants, makeup artists and hairdressers are clearly coded as gay men. Paradoxically, they are in the programmes in order to reinforce heterosexuality.

7. I am concentrating on gender here but my argument could equally apply to class or race.