Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex, and Plastic Surgery in Brazil

Pretty Modern is a riveting account of Brazil's emergence as a global leader in plastic surgery. Intrigued by a Carnaval parade that mysteriously paid homage to a Rio de Janeiro plastic surgeon, anthropologist Alexander Edmonds conducted research that took him from Ipanema socialite circles to glitzy telenovela studios to the packed waiting rooms of public hospitals offering free cosmetic surgery. The result is provocative exploration of the erotic, commercial, and intimate aspects of beauty in a nation with extremes of wealth and poverty and a reputation for natural sensuality. Drawing on conversations with maids and their elite mistresses, divorced housewives, black celebrities, and favela residents aspiring to be fashion models, Edmonds analyzes what sexual desirability means and does for women in different social positions. He argues that beauty is a distinct realm of modern experience that does not simply reflect other inequalities. It mimics the ambiguous emancipatory potential of capital, challenging traditional hierarchies while luring consumers into a sexual culture that reduces the body to the brute biological criteria of attractiveness. Illustrated with color photographs, Pretty Modern offers a fresh theoretical perspective on the significance of female beauty in consumer capitalism.

Table of Contents:
Illustrations viii Introduction. In the Universe of Beauty 1 Part One. The Self-Esteem in Each Ego Awakens Siliconadas 37 The Philosopher of PlÁstica 47 Without Tits There Is No Paradise 57 A Brief History of Self-Esteem 75 Hospital School 89 The Right to Beauty 102 Aesthetic Health 114 Part Two. Beautiful People Preta 123 Magnificent Miscegenation 127 The National Passion 135 Nanci's Rhinoplasty 143 My Black Is My Brand 150 Role Models 162 The Economy of Appearances 167 Part Three. Engineering the Erotic Creating and Modeling Nature 177 Aesthetic Medicine and Motherhood 183 The Vanity of Maids 195 Lens of Dreams 204 I Love Myself 219 Conclusion 239 Acknowledgments 253 Notes 257 References 269 Index 285

About the Author :
Alexander Edmonds is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.

Review :
"Alex Edmond's book Pretty Modern is a remarkable account of cosmetic surgery - or plastica - in Brazil. It attempts to locate cosmetic surgery as a specific cultural practice in a particular location breaks with regular tired debates about whether cosmetic surgery is 'good' or 'bad', explaining instead what plastica means to its participants. The book entwines the views of both patients and surgeons - many of whom Edmonds spent considerable time with - in the notion of aesthetic health'." - Ruth Holliday, Sociology of Health & Illness, Vol. 34 No. 1, 2012 "A masterpiece. Pretty Modern is one of the most nuanced and beautifully crafted ethnographies out there."--Joao Biehl, Princeton University "A fresh, smart, insightful, entertaining and compelling book about a topic--cosmetic surgery--that many of us thought had self-combusted in the 1990s, amid irresolvable debates about whether women who wanted bigger breasts were subjects with agency or duped victims of the 'beauty myth'. Pretty Modern rises from the ashes of those debates to provide us with exciting new ways of thinking about what plastic surgery is, what it means and what it does. It is first-rate anthropology and a wonderfully perceptive study of Brazil."--Don Kulick, author of Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes "This is an articulate and eloquent introduction to the Brazil that we all knew existed, but were afraid to discuss." Latin American Review of Books