ABSTRACT
It all started on American daytime talk-televsion just before the millennium. After endless confrontations on Jerry Springer-like shows that centered around infidelity and sexual identity, producers must have decided that feel-good episodes were needed. Working-class women (and then men) would be “made over” and made glamorous by designers, hairdressers, and cosmetologists. This would add a touch of class to the shows. At about the same time, television shows in the United States and Europe were broadcast on cable channels such as the Discovery Channel about people who had planned aesthetic surgery, as physicians call it. They were followed from their first consultation through the actual procedure, shown on camera, to the unmasking of the new face or body months later.
