Pretty Modern Brazil Analysis

Alexander Edmonds explores the different characteristics of beauty that have allowed Brazil to emerge as a global leader in plastic surgery in his ethnography, Pretty Modern. Throughout it, Edmonds discusses Brazilians’ construction of beauty and the shifting views of treatment and enhancement, giving the largest voice to women. Drawing from conversations with people of varied socialite circles, he investigates the structural, cultural, psychological, and historical factors that influence beauty such as the implications of sensuality that are embedded in plastic surgery. By the end of his ethnography, however, the neglected viewpoint within this realm of beauty is that of those who do not want to receive surgery. Through my own brief discussions
She believes that plastic surgery should only be a right when reconstructive because aesthetic surgery, more often than not, is problematic within the media. “The people in media have a large influence in other people’s lives.” Although we may not explicitly chase after these body types,” she says “we allow for these images to subconsciously tell us that is what we also want to look like.” The two young women, through their comments, seem to disagree with a point of view that Edmonds brings up regarding cosmetic surgery having a direct relationship to health. For these young women, there appears to be a disconnect in terms of aesthetic surgery and health. Plastic surgery, only when considered reconstructive, appears to serve a social purpose. On the other hand, most people that Edmonds spoke with seemed to think that both aesthetic and reconstructive surgery are a part of health, explaining why most public hospitals offer it for free even when the funds are allocated only for reconstructive surgery. Surgeons have made an argument that since cosmetic surgery can be psychological, it coincides with mental health and something worth treating (Edmonds