While the quest for eternal youth and beauty dates back to ancient mythology and persists as a recurrent theme throughout history, contemporary science and technology advances are beginning to gain headway on truly turning back time. People concerned about aging and beauty have numerous options these days. The FDA has approved multiple dermal fillers and several more are expected to be approved in the coming years, most of these capitalizing on the advantage of longer lasting results. While more permanent options have the serious drawback of causing lumpiness, the result of not adhering to the body’s change and growth over time, the search for longer lasting injectibles is symbolic of our culture’s Transhumanist efforts to prolong youth as long as possible. Botox, a nuerotoxic protein administered in very small doses across the forehead, interferes with neurotransmitter firing, halting muscle movement, and thus diminishing the visibility of forehead lines and wrinkles around the eyes. In 2007, sales for the cosmetic use of Botox reached $600 million. Despite the economic recession, Botox sales continue to be on the rise as people grasp for ways to progress in their career and compete with an encroaching younger generation willing to work for less. While more invasive and costly procedures require far more forethought and planning (recovery time can last from days to months, compared with botox and fillers which require at most a day), the industry is moving quickly to develop easier, less invasive possibilities. Zeltiq, a potential alternative to liposuction, is a new cooling technique that claims to reduce fat cells by “apoptosis.” “The damaged fat cells are then slowly digested by the body over several months and then removed by the liver." While the science behind this new procedure seems a bit sketchy and imprecise (Zeltiq is approved by the FDA as a cooling applicant to relieve pain and discomfort during skin procedures), laser treatments and minimally invasive biomolecular injections will soon replace procedures performed under the knife.
However, while many people visit the dermatologist or cosmetic surgeon hoping to enhance and improve their own looks, perhaps to reduce the look of a prominent nose or plump up a small upper lip, most of these new technoglogical and chemical procedures are capitalizing on culturally fetishized features, de-emphasizing the individual and instead demarcating and perpetuating a mass mediated ideal.
Transhumanism celebrates the potential of the body when modified by scientific invervention, such as achieving eternal youth in old age. The body is perceived as capable of infinite manipulability, from brain enhancement to limb prosthetics to transgenic implants, sparking a controversial discourse on creative improvisation that could liberate our bodies and minds from the “average man” prototype we currently measure up against. But the desire for aesthetic enhancement may be far more limited in scope, burdened by the mediating discourses of digital culture and media expectations. In the article, linked below, from H+magazine, Michael Jackson is described, somewhat defended, as having taken full advantage of Transhumanist ideals of aesthetic self-transformation. By bleaching his skin color, slimming his nose, carving a dimple in his chin, and hollowing his cheeckbones, Jackson breached the biological boundaries of inheritance and culturally imposed categorizations of identity and subjectivity. However, while Jackson represents Transhumanist ideals in his “pursuit of otherness,” the mainstream culture shows minimal interest in undergoing such radical changes in appearance. While the number of procedures now available to the public is extensive, many doctors performing several in tandem, the end result is less about denying cultural or biological boundaries than desperately adhering to contemporary physical standards and stereotypes. Women want Angelina Jolie lips, Julia Roberts’ teeth, and twiggy, supermodel-thin thighs. "The jocks I talked to wanted to be bigger and stronger so they could beat the shit out of everybody else; the women wanted to morph into their ideal role models" (H+). The body, rather than breaking free of pre-ordained constraints, is subjecting itself more ardently to culturally mediated ideals. While advances in these procedures potentially approach the possibility of altering one’s physical appearance enough to assume or embody a new look, an alternate identity, drastically different from the one we are born with, present options are indebted to what we see on TV or in the movies or what is conventionally accepted as appropriate. So far, those who have fully experimented with plastic surgery and image altering procedures have been criticized and dismissed as freaks, even initiating a new medicalized discourse: Body Dismorphic Disorder. In this sense, cosmetic enhancement predicts a culture of conformity- a society of plastic beings with perfectly sloped noses and plump lips, erased of emotional character and aged experience.
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