Pretty Modern

• 1. Notions of beauty and body image in Brazil have been profoundly shaped by the country's history of racism, sexism, and social inequality. Edmonds employs an intersectional anthropological lens to analyze how factors like class, gender, and race interact to inform Brazilian beauty norms prizing lightness and European features.
• 1. Cosmetic surgery has exploded as a phenomenon among Brazilian women across socioeconomic divisions as a means to attempt to achieve idealized body images promised in consumer culture. Through an anthropology of the body, Edmonds explores how lived experiences are embodied through plastic surgery practices.
• 1. Beauty pageants like Miss Brazil serve as key cultural sites for the construction of gendered and racialized identities, acting as mediums where bodily disciplines and discursive practices regulate women along lines of class, race, region, etc. Applying theories of performativity, Edmonds investigates how contests shape bodily hexis.
• 1. Brazil's asserted national identity as a racially democratic, sexually liberated country clashes with enduring hierarchy and prejudice. Ethnographic data provides counter evidence to popular narratives, exemplifying how anthropologists can critique frames like the "myth of racial democracy."
• 1. The supposed "right to beauty" has deep roots in Brazilian history and myth-making tied to ideas of Brazil as a tropical paradise inhabited by a sexually liberated and racially democratic people. Beauty is framed as something inherently accessible to all Brazilians.
• From an anthropological lens, these phenomena surrounding surgical body modification as a perceived job opportunity tactic exemplify the deep internalization of patriarchal, ethnocentric capitalist value systems that objectify women's bodies as tools for upward mobility - an embodiment of intersectional inequality through means of biomedicine
• Edmonds argues that this preference for white features reflects a desire to escape poverty and gain access to better opportunities in Brazilian society.
• In Brazil, there is a strong association between whiteness and femininity, which is reflected in the popularity of cosmetic surgeries aimed at achieving lighter skin tones and more European facial features.
• In Brazil, there is a strong association between whiteness and social status, which is reflected in the popularity of cosmetic surgeries aimed at achieving lighter skin tones.
• Cosmetic surgery is often seen as a way for women to improve their chances of finding employment or securing higher-paying jobs.
• However, it also reinforces existing power dynamics and perpetuates systemic inequality based on race and gender.
• Women who undergo cosmetic surgeries may be viewed as having greater potential for upward mobility due to their physical appearance.
• Cosmetic surgery is seen as a way to improve one's chances of success in Brazilian society, particularly in terms of finding employment and advancing socioeconomically.
• There are significant disparities in healthcare access based on race and class in Brazil, with poorer individuals often unable to afford necessary medical treatments or procedures.
• Some critics argue that the emphasis on appearance and conformity to Western standards of beauty perpetuates gender norms and reinforces traditional roles for women.
• People like Flavia cannot afford to get plastic surgery like the rich private clinics
• Social and economic segregation of women
• Emotional Suffering
• "A psychologist with a scalpel in his hand"
• "A deficit in self esteem that could be surgically corrected"
• Psychological need to do plastic surgery to enhance beauty
• Mitigate the social inferiority and insecurity complex of women
• Plastic surgery required to be a part of society- norms and cultural acceptance
• (set of rules-implicit)- conform in order to gain economic advantage
• Patriarchal pressure against women to fit under the male gaze
• Ethnic features not part of the beauty standard
• Economic advantage if abide by beauty standards
• Unrealistic beauty standards demonstrate a culture of plastic surgery
• Brazilians open with each other about plastic surgery- openly spoken about, interviews on TV, magazines etc
• Economic and social advantage
• Vulgar: "She couldn't afford the bus fare to the hospital"
• A Brazilian Proverb: "White women for marriage, mulatas for screwing, black women for work"
• Edmond: "Wealthy women became amused that even maids are having plastic surgery"
• Edmond: "A psychologist with a scalpel in his hand"
• Tatiana: "It's a part of daily life now"
• Edmond: "A procedure considered 'safe' by plastic surgeons"
• Ester: "Surgery improves a woman's auto-estima (self-esteem)"
• Lucia: "Everything to become young again"