Friday, February 13, 2009 - Posts
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Susannah, reading your post about plastic surgery I couldn't help but think of Octomom, who, with each passing revelation, seems to be even more deeply troubled than she first appeared. Though Nadya Suleman has denied adoring Angelina Jolie or having had plastic surgery, rumors contradicting both those statements persist. Most recently, the Daily Mail claimed Suleman sent Jolie some adoring fan letters; various acquaintances keep insisting she had her lips and nose done in order to resemble the world's hottest mama. It's creepy information to add to an already creeptastic situation: Is this a case of childbirth as plastic surgery, i.e., were the babies another medically driven way for Suleman to resmeble her hero? And is Suleman (or, say, the twins who underwent multiple surgeries to look like Brad Pitt on MTV's incredibly upsetting series I Want a Famous Face) inhabiting a triple consciousness, stuck between who she appears to be, who she wants to be, and who she really is?
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Reading "Plastic Surgery Confidential" and "Growth Industry," I was struck by the similarities between the two. In the first, 27-year-old, 120-pound Melanie Berliet visits a slew of plastic surgeons who inform her that she's in dire need of $30,000 worth of plastic surgery. In the second, Kent Sepkowitz investigates male "enhancement" procedures that promise to turn men's penises into frankenfurters. There are plenty of women-run sites devoted to lamenting the multitude of ways pop culture turns female self-love into self-loathing, but far less attention is paid to how pop culture makes men neurotic about their masculinity.
In one surgeon's office, Berliet meets the Axis Three, a high-tech digital visualization program that uses fancy effects to show prospective surgical patients what their boobs might look like after they've been implanted. Meanwhile, at the University of Belgrade, men can have their penis disassembled and lengthened with the help of a transplanted rib. I'm actually all too familiar with the male "growth industry," having done more than one story on the subject, from penis weight-lifting to penile enlargement surgery. (Regarding the latter, suffice to say, it wasn't pretty.)
In "Posthumans Go Hollywood! (Maybe)," Charlie Jane Anders asserts the cyborgization of the population is about escapism. But when the cyborg is you, is the escape from yourself or from the human population? While there's something pleasurable about imagining a world in which you can become whomever you want to be, the haunting backdrop is that of someone who inhabits a double-consciousness, stuck between who they appear to be and who they really are, the gap between unbridged.
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There's been a spate of recent female suicide bombers in Iraq, most recently a woman—who is suspected to be a Sunni linked to al-Qaida in Mesopotamia—who killed 30 Shiite pilgrims today in the village of Abu Jasim. According to the New York Times, the upswing in female bombers is becuase of adjusted tactics by aggressive insurgents wanting to avoid detection:
Cultural mores here generally mean women are subject to less intrusive searches, while their loose robes more easily hide explosive vests or belts. Iraq’s police and military have responded by trying to hire more women as security officers to search women at checkpoints.
Anne Applebaum wrote about the strategic advantages of female suicide bombers for Slate in 2002, focusing on Palestinian women who chose to blow themselves up for their cause. But Anne's points are applicable to this most recent explosion, since today's Iraqi bomber targeted tents of women and children:
Yet the use of women—young women—isn't entirely a matter of terrorist tactics either. There is a public relations game at work, too. By sending someone like Akhras into a supermarket to set off a bomb, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade—or its backers—are knowingly breaking down whatever frail, lingering barriers remain between combatants and noncombatants, terrorists and innocent civilians in the Middle East. The war has come to this: Women and children are now killing women and children.
Obviously in the seven intervening years since Anne wrote this piece, things have changed, and the situation in Iraq is not identical to the one in Israel, but her point about the barriers between combatants and noncombatants is still a relevant one. If you want to know what's in it for these female martyrs, since they don't get the 70 virgins promised to male bombers, Michelle Tsai did an excellent "Explainer" on the rewards awaiting female suicide bombers in heaven.
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Just in time for Valentine's Day: The British Library is exhibiting a long-lost love letter from Henry VIII to his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Henry's no Shakespeare (or Sidney), but he's not too shabby: "For my part, I will out-do you, if this be possible, rather than reciprocate, in loyalty of heart and my desire to please you." Note especially the adorable way the corpulent monarch doodled his beloved's initials in a little heart.
V-Day haters, you can take pleasure in the letter, too—Henry did eventually have Anne beheaded, after all.
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