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Cressida Connolly

I′m not sure it′s quite me…


 Cressida Connolly   65 such as cleft palates or    developed, but in why: what
 reviews harelips. This trend Haiken Venus Envy cries out for is conjecture.
 VENUS ENVY: A HISTORY OF ascribes to two things; the evergreen7    The most interesting passages
 COSMETIC SURGERY desire for self-improvement140 are gleaned from the writings
 by Elizabeth Haiken enshrined within the of social historians. Warren
 Johns Hopkins £20.50,70 American way of life and, rather Susman’s theory is particularly
 pp301 In 1936, less probably, a mass collective sound: that nineteenth-century
  adoption of psychoanalyst Alfred values on ‘character’ gave way,
1    In 1936, leading British plastic Adler’s inferiority complex.145 early this century, to an emphasis
 surgeon Sir Harold Gillies4    She has unearthed some on ‘personality’ - in other
 was approached by a young75 remarkable, disturbing findings. words an onus on inner spiritual
 general surgeon who was A chapter on ethnicity and cosmetic qualities became replaced by
5 considering specialisation in work reveals the alarming outer magnetism and charm. As
 the discipline. ‘Really I do statistic that in 1990 alone150 society became more urbanised
 not think you have a chance, 39,000 Asian patients in America and competitive, the community
 my boy,’ he was told. ‘There80 underwent operations to was displaced by the individual.
 are four plastic surgeons in the create Western-style ‘double First impressions became a
10 country and I can’t think there eyelids’. In the build-up to the commodity. Then as now, good
 can be room for more.’ Sixty-odd Vietnam war, scores of native155 looks improved career prospects.
 years later, Sir Harold’s words women had breast augmentations (A pair of research economists
 seem almost comically misjudged:85 in order to attract US servicemen found, in 1993, that
 in Britain about 70,000 posted in their country. good looks improve earnings by
15 people a year now elect to Perhaps most scandalous of all 5 per cent, whatever the occupation.)
 undergo cosmetic procedures. is the fact that - unknowingly -160 Striving for physical improvement
 According to a recent report in US tax-payers were, during the thus became a valid
 the Times, some women - 9090 1970s at least, contributing part of the American dream.
 per cent of patients are female - between $1 million and $6m8    So much for the early days,
20 are now being given corrective annually on free cosmetic operations but Haiken does not address
 operations as Christmas presents: for the wives of military165 enough attention to the current
 Bupa hospitals say January personnel. state of cosmetic surgery:
 bookings for such treatments595    Too much of this book is although one chapter is called
 are up by 15 per cent on taken up with the ‘how’ of The Michael Jackson Factor’,
25 last year. cosmetic surgery. How the early she makes no attempts to address
2    Venus Envy (great title) is a surgeons organised themselves;170 the bizarre psychology
 timely history of this extraordinary how liquid paraffin predated which drives his bid for transfor-
 growth industry, which100 silicone and eventually collagen mation. The only conclusion
 focuses on its development in as an implanting agent; how she reaches is that Jackson
30 the author’s native America. Barbra Streisand didn’t have a suffers from self-hatred. She
 Haiken makes a convincing case nose job, despite the vastness175 could surely do better than this.
 for her belief that the discipline of her snout, and how Michael9    For a wider and more convin-
 was not, as is often thought, born105 Jackson did, despite the modest cing investigation into the American
 of advances in reconstructive size of his.(Haiken’s admiration obsession with youthfulness,
35 surgery deriving from injuries for Streisand’s early rhinoplastic readers will have to search
 sustained by soldiers in the First restraint is boundless. The sing-180 elsewhere. Robert Bly (scorned
 World War. While acknowledging er is mentioned again and creator of Iron John) has addressed
 that the war made cosmetic110 again, in the warmest tones. the issue in The Sibling
 surgery respectable - even Odd, then, that the author has Society, and many feminist commen-
40 heroic - she sets out to prove not remarked on Streisand’s tators, from Naomi Wolf’s
 that an interest in ‘beauty surgery’ remarkable youthfulness, nor185 The Beauty Myth onwards, continue
 predates 1917. her fullness of upper lip and ski- to question the mores
3    Haiken’s contention is that115 slope straightness of nose. which fuel the search for eternal
 cosmetic surgery has always Reassuring to note that, youth. What does this mania for
45 tried to escape the charge of even to the eye of a historian youth and beauty say about a
 profiteering from vanity and insecurity of facelifts, love remains190 nation’s moral health? About the
 by medicalising itself. By blind.) value of sexual desire? About
 clinging to the idea that it was6120    Elizabeth Haiken is the life of the soul? What worth
 born from the noble cause of repairing assistant professor of history does a society with such superficial
50 the disfigurements of at the University of Tennessee preoccupations put on the
 brave servicemen, it lent itself and a high level of scholarly195 wisdom of age? What might be
 gravitas and respectability. The and thorough research is every- lost by forgoing senescence,
 treatment of burns with skin125 where evident. This is not a and might anything be gained?
 grafts following the Second populist book. It reads like10    These are the sort of questions
55 World War gave further weight to a very well-written PhD thesis. which anyone buying
 the by-product of cosmetic work. The problem with such an approach,200 Venus Envy will surely be
 But over the years, it has taken though, is that cosmetic surgery interested in. The pity is that
 hostages by pathologising flaws130 is a populist subject. Much as Elizabeth Haiken does not come
 that might properly be regarded I rue the triumph of opinion over closer to answering them.
60 as quite normal. Double chins, knowledge which characterises so 
 big noses, thin lips and drooping much contemporary writing, this ‘The Observer Review’,
 breasts have all come to be book errs so far in the opposite205 January 11, 1998
 regarded as deformities; as135 direction. The fascination of cosmetic
 deserving of correction as conditions surgery lies not in how it