ABSTRACT
The discipline of sociology has in recent years focused on various aspects of the relationship between cosmetic surgery and cultural reproduction (Davis 1995; Balsamo 1996; Blum 2003; Fraser 2003). While some attention has been devoted to popular culture and the media in this connection (Jones 2007), sociology has nonetheless developed only partial perspectives on the actual impact of celebrity on the rise of cosmetic surgical culture. This, in one sense, might be considered odd, given the dramatic prevalence of surgical culture and
practices of ‘extreme reinvention’ (Elliott and Lemert 2009b; Elliott 2014) in the fields of popular culture and everyday life. In this chapter I argue that the rise of cosmetic surgery throughout the West is such that cultural sociology must engage with cultural forms of selfreinvention and bodily plasticity in terms of newly emerging practices of identification with celebrity (Elliott 2008). From Botox and lipo to tummy tucks and mini-facelifts, the number of cosmetic surgery operations undertaken around the globe has recently soared – with one commentator estimating that the cosmetic surgery industry is worth US$15 billion per annum (Kuczynski 2006). In a society in which celebrity is divine, information technology rules, new ways of working predominate and people increasingly judge each other on first impressions, cosmetic enhancements of the body have become increasingly held up by the media as a norm.
