In the mid-90s, French performance artist Orlan had nine cosmetic surgery procedures performed on her face; each broadcast live to museums and galleries around Europe. In each instance, she was awake, often adorned in outrageous costumes, reading poetry throughout the procedure. Orlan’s performance, dubbed “The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan” intended to pluck from history the archetypal images we associate with femininity. Lips from Bouche’s Rape of Europa, brow of the Mona Lisa, Chin of Boticelli’s Venus.

In the end, the coupling of idyllic facial features left Orlan looking more beastly than beautiful. Of course, unlike the average surgery-goer, Orlan’s goal was not one of aesthetic perfection. In an interview with The Guardian, Orlan said, “my goal was to be different, strong; to sculpt my own body to reinvent the self. It's all about being different and creating a clash with society because of that. I tried to use surgery not to better myself or become a younger version of myself, but to work on the concept of image and surgery the other way around.” And perhaps, in her work, Orlan suggested that cosmetic surgery proponents are not so much re-inventing the self, but in having the self reinvented under the hands of another’s idea of beauty.

In my own feminist thought, I interpret her work as playing with the plasticity of the body, but insisting that the beauty norms we so commonly follow may in fact get you nowhere. But maybe it could get the rest of us somewhere…

In November of 2009, one of the proposed ways to pay for the health care bill was to tack a 5% tax onto cosmetic surgery procedures, quaintly labeled “Bo-tax”. This, in effect, puts cosmetic surgery in the same camp as taxing cigarettes, gambling, and driving large and aggressive SUVs—if you choose to indulge in something far outside the realm of necessity, perhaps some good could come out of it for society.

The idea, of course, hit the chopping block in the health care discussion. And there was one very surprising advocate of its demise—the National Organization for Women. NOW’s position stated that in tough economic times, middle-class women (the demographic mostly frequently under the knife) need jobs, and the realities of our society dictate that she must be young and spry with taut skin in order to find that work.

And so the question becomes, is it more important to accept the beauty realities of the time and forge ahead, playing by the rules? Or should we turn beauty expectations into art, making a mockery of the norms that weigh heavy on women’s shoulders?

When the going gets tough, the tough get facelifts? As though a more beautiful pool of applicants will increase the number of available jobs? Let's play by the rules now, for it will mean getting ahead in the long run? I shudder at the logic.

I, for one, would love the Bo-tax. I have to deal with the beauty ideal with every billboard I pass, every magazine I read. At the very least, those past 27 years of beauty bombardment could give back to me what I so desperately need—affordable birth control, a twice-annual teeth cleaning, and the knowledge that if I can’t grow old with perky breasts, at least I can grow old with healthy ones.

Sources

The Nation: Feminism's Face Lift, NPR.

Art and design, Guardian.co.uk