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Latina bodies in the era of elective aesthetic surgery

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Abstract

Using a multi-methods approach (for example, ethnographic interviews, participant observation, content analysis of television shows), I explored Latina women’s experiences with the plastic surgery industry. This article illustrates how multiple actors – doctors, beauty pageant promoters, stylists, beauty queens, media and plastic surgery consumers themselves – construct notions of universal beauty. The reality television show Dr. 90210 and the Miss Universe Pageant competition are analyzed to understand the ways in which multiple actors/agents influence Latina/o beauty ideals and how these in turn influence plastic surgery practices. This article also explores the ways in which ethnicity, race and cultural ideals disrupt, and at times, shape plastic surgery practices. What I call the Maja woman emerges as the universal beauty ideal for Latinas.

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Notes

  1. A myriad of interests (for example, Anglo and ‘Latino’ media, government agencies, businesses, among others) come together to group women of presumably Latin American national and ethnic backgrounds into the broad category of US Latina (Dávila, 2001). The term Latina also evokes a specific set of stereotypes (often perpetuated by Anglo and Latino media alike) that include, but are not limited to, sexy, hypersexual, bombshell, “hot tamale,” alternately loud or submissive, spicy, feisty or hot blooded, curvaceous, fast speaking, and accented speech and histrionic.

  2. Every one of the women I interviewed cited media (for example, fashion magazines, television shows and Internet), as a major source of information of beauty trends including elective aesthetic surgery. This finding supports those of a 2007 study published in the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons that addressed the convergence between television shows and advertisement for plastic surgery procedures. The study, entitled “The Influence of Plastic Surgery ‘Reality TV’ on Cosmetic Surgery Patient Expectations and Decision Making,” asked 42 informants at the Yale Plastic Surgery Clinic: “How have television shows/media influenced your decision to undergo plastic surgery?” (Crockett et al, 2007, 317). They found that 50 per cent of Hispanic or Latino subjects in their sample reported that “they were very much or moderately influenced to pursue cosmetic surgery as a result of television/media” (Crockett et al, 2007, 321).

  3. These statistics are aggregates and represent all consumers, men and women, who identified as Hispanic. American Society of Plastic Surgeons “2012 Plastic Surgery Statistics Report, Cosmetic Demographics” and “2010 Report of the 2009 Statistics of Plastic Surgery,” (http://www.plasticsurgery.org/), accessed 3 May 2011 and 12 August 2013. Interestingly, between 2000 and 2010 there was a decline in the percentage of invasive surgical procedures, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons report an increase of 110 per cent in “minimally invasive” procedures (such as injectables). Injections of botulinum toxin (commonly known as Botox), is now the top cosmetic procedure performed in the United States. (see, http://www.plasticsurgery.org/news-and-resources/2010-statistics.html).

  4. I conducted a minimum of three interviews with each informant, each lasting about 1 hour; phone conversations usually lasted an average of 25 min. I am still in contact with many of the women from this study.

  5. This number includes contestants from Brazil and Spain. For the history of Latin American Miss Universe winners see, http://entretenimiento.aollatino.com/2010/06/24/latina-winners-miss-universe/

  6. In Latin America, Venezuela (N=6) and Puerto Rico (N=5) hold the greatest number of Miss Universe crowns to date (Mexico N=2; Peru N=1; Brazil N=2; Chile N=1; Panama N=1; Dominican Republic N=1; Argentina N=1; Colombia N=1; Spain N=1; and United States N=8).

  7. In fact, the Website: http://www.starpulse.com/news/Vanessa_Mujica/2010/11/08/hollywoods_top_10_hottest_latinos_y_la lists Hollywood’s top 10 Latina/o celebrities, and does not include a single Afro-Latina/o in its ranks. However, Cosmopolitan has created a slideshow that lists “12 Beautiful Afro-Latina Celebrities:” http://www.cosmopolitan.com/cosmo-latina/afro-latina-celebrities#slide-1 (not surprisingly, there seems to be a preference for olive and light-brown skin colored Afro-Latinas). Dávila has noted that, “Black Latinas are seldom signifiers of generic Latinidad…” (2001:121).

  8. Fiorana, Inc. (2008). “Viva Latina. Fiorana Launches ‘Latina Cut’ Premium Denim at WWD MAGIC.” (http://www.pr.com/press-release/68389), accessed 3 July 2010.

  9. West (2005). “Mannequin Makers Focus on the Bottom Line”. (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-05-15/features/0505150488_1_mannequins-goldsmith-latest-innovations), accessed 3 July 2010.

  10. See “Las Caderas de Diana Salgado la Alejan de la Corona de Miss Colombia”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31IAczdPZaU&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ougbznt-lbM&NR=1, accessed 9 January 2010.

  11. A White American friend, who describes her butt as large, told me that during her travels in Argentina and Uruguay, where European models of beauty hold, she was insulted many times by men who came on to her in the streets calling her butt “un culo de puta” (a whore’s ass). A “big” rear end is not a desirable physical trait in all parts of Latin America.

  12. Interviews with Puerto Rican and Dominican girls (ages 14–18) in New England, have revealed that the large majority of girls in the study agree that being “too skinny” is not beautiful or desirable. For the most part, the girls believe that having a full-curvaceous body is the ideal feminine figure.

  13. The American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS) reports in that in 2011 men “underwent more than 1.2 million cosmetic procedures” (ASPS Annual Report). The recent Sammy Sosa “whitening” controversy illustrates not only that increasingly men are also turning to body modification technologies to “upgrade” their bodies and look, but also, is illustrative of Latin America’s long-standing tradition of “whitening.’ In fact, it is a well-known fact that Dominican Republic’s President Rafael Leonidas Trujillo often wore cover-up to whiten his complexion. Less known, is that around 1944, Trujillo’s daughter underwent an elective aesthetic surgery (a rhinoplasty) at the hands of a Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a New York surgeon, who became an honorary professor at the Universities of Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, as well as a fellow in the Latin American Society of Plastic Surgeons (Haiken, 1997, 73).

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Acknowledgements

I am ever grateful to Carlos Garcia-Quijano for his editorial assistance, methodological advice and support through all the phases of research and writing. I am also indebted to Kirsten Ernst for reading early drafts, providing valuable editorial comments and for updating me on popular press and research articles about beauty and bodies. This article was also enriched by comments received during presentations at the Puerto Rican Studies Association, Latin American Studies Association, at symposia sponsored by the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at College of the Holy Cross and the Instituto de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias, University of Puerto Rico-Cayey. I am also thankful to Suzanne Oboler, Lourdes Torres and to anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

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  1. American Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI

    Hilda Lloréns

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Lloréns, H. Latina bodies in the era of elective aesthetic surgery. Lat Stud 11, 547–569 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2013.32

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