ABSTRACT

Much like some of the narratives examined by Edgley in Chapter Sixteen, the stories collected by Michael Atkinson in interviews with male customers of the plastic surgery industry show how the alliance between technology, capitalism, and the culture of beauty works: by providing the promise of a technologically advanced “cure” for feelings of body dissatisfaction, plastic surgery can turn lives around by transforming the gender identity of its patrons. From a narrative perspective such an event is a classic turning point distinguishing a life story with the traits of the “before and after” genre. In a cultural universe where it is women who seem to be the exclusive protagonists of stories of beauties and beasts, the value of Atkinson’s research resides in its potential to tell the untold stories of men struggling with their own bodies and with the value of plastic surgery. Far from seeking hyper-masculinity, as the stories reported in this chapter illustrate, these men are actively seeking ways of re-writing the story of their embodied self.