Ms Meredith Jones
Meredith is a doctoral candidate and is researching cosmetic surgery and contemporary new-fashioned styles of embodiment. She teaches media theory at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Mutton Dressed up as Lamb: Mothers, Daughters and Cosmetic Surgery
Cosmetic surgery is a fast-growing industry in Australia and is a perennial topic in popular women's magazines. A number of glossy publications specialising in cosmetic surgery have recently appeared. This paper identifies a genre common to both types of magazine: the article that focuses on mothers, daughters, and cosmetic surgery. The fairytale "Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs" is deployed to historicise the myth of jealous mothers and vulnerable daughters, and to show its continued relevance in relation to the beauty industry and consumerism. Drawing on examples from magazines "NW" and "Gloss", the visual and textual discourses of the mother-daughter relationship, with specific regard to cosmetic surgery, are analysed. It is argued that both fairytale and magazine discourses lock women into competitive and comparative struggles that are sometimes empowering but most often destructive. Cosmetic surgery is situated as a medical/beauty technology that works in largely constricting ways by promising empowerment but in fact locking mother and daughter together in a destructive symbiosis. An alternative outlook based on the feminist psychoanalytic theory of Kathleen Woodward and Gail Weiss' theory of intercorporeality is suggested.
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