{"id":588,"date":"2021-09-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/?p=588"},"modified":"2022-09-05T19:00:54","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T22:00:54","slug":"o-bumbum-brasileiro-cirurgias-plasticas-e-raca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/o-bumbum-brasileiro-cirurgias-plasticas-e-raca\/","title":{"rendered":"The Brazilian Butt: Plastic Surgery and Race"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In February 2021, the British newspaper The Guardian<\/em> published an article about the brazilian butt lift<\/em> (BBL) ou lifting <\/em>In Brazil, this procedure is known as liposculpture, where the patient\u2019s\nown fat is used to reshape body contours. Fat removed from the abdomen, for example, is\ninjected into other areas, such as the hips and buttocks, adding new curves to the patient\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

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According to data from the International Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS),\npresented in the report, this surgery has grown 77.6% in popularity worldwide since 2015. In 2019,\n54,894 surgeries were performed, of which 18,370 (33%) were carried out in the United States,\nBrazil and Mexico. The article also points out the strong presence of figures like Kim Kardashian,\nJennifer Lopez and Nicki Minaj in the media, references when the subject is the ideal butt.<\/p>\n

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People tend to associate Brazilian women with wide hips and big butts, especially in the\nGlobal North. Images of popular festivals, such as Carnival, and of our beaches, filled with\nvoluptuous bodies and tiny bikinis, illustrate the \u201cBrazilian butt\u201d costume. The body of the\n\u201cmulatto\u201d is idealized, as described by the anthropologist \u00c1lvaro Jarr\u00edn, who conducted an\nethnographic investigation on plastic surgery in Brazil.<\/p>\n

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Brazil is a research and development center in the field of plastic surgery and trains\nhundreds of professionals in the most diverse specialties. This is due to a very specific access\ncontext, which acts as a two-way street between patients and professionals. The development of\nnew techniques and interventions, for example, is directly associated with the possibility of\npracticing on the bodies of black and lower-class women.<\/p>\n

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Several plastic surgeries are offered by the Unified Health System (SUS), when\nunderstood as repair surgeries, that is, aimed at restoring or repairing any alteration, anomaly or\ndysfunction. The private sector, on the other hand, offers payment methods that facilitate access,\nsuch as scheduled surgery and the \u201clease-to-own payments,\u201d in which the patient pays a certain\namount per month until all costs are covered. In other words, aesthetic procedures in general,\nwhether surgical or not, are not exclusive to the middle and upper classes. This is a unique\nsituation, distinct from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

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A closer look at various aesthetic interventions allows us to see the intertwining of plastic\nsurgery with eugenic policies. The history of plastic surgery is marked by this relationship, even\nthough we make a recurrent effort to erase its racial character. In this context, Sander Gilman\u2019s\nwork is representative. The author states that the history of plastic surgery is not only associated\nwith a process of normalization or beautification: it is also marked by racial issues. Among the more\nthan twenty procedures covered by him, it\u2019s worth highlighting breast reduction surgeries,\nperformed on a large scale in the late twentieth century in Brazil. Large breasts would be\nstereotypically associated with black women, in a way that middle-class families presented their\ndaughters with the operation, moving them away from a racialized aesthetic. We can mention\nother surgeries that aim at the same objective, such as rhinoplasty, when it aims to correct the\n\u201cnegroide\u201d nose\u2014a racist definition adopted by eugenic physicians, and which is still in use today.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In anthropological and feminist literature, there are several procedures associated with\nan \u201cethnic\u201d character, widely criticized for erasing identity marks, through a process of\ninternalization of racism. One of these interventions is blepharoplasty, also known as eye\nwesternization surgery. Philosopher Cressida Heyes takes up feminist critiques of surgery and\nasks: why are only non-white or ethnically marked bodies read as engaged in projects of bodily\nconformation? The author states that all body modification processes are implied by aesthetic\nnorms, which have cuts of class, race, gender, age, capacity, etc. And white people actively\nparticipate in these tensions.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s consider another procedure performed on the eyes, known as foxy eyes.<\/em>The\nprocedure is meant to make the outer corner of the eyes longer, which supposedly makes them\nmore attractive. Influencer and actress Fl\u00e1via Palavalli, who has more than 18 million followers on Instagram<\/em>, had the procedure done in 2020. On social networks, many users wondered: why are\nEastern Asian women are criticized for \u201cwesternizing\u201d their look, for instance, while western\nwomen become empowered by seeking changes that make their eyes \u201csexy\u201d? What is the pattern\nhere?<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s recall the iconic opening scene of\nthe 2016 Olympic Games, hosted in Brazil.\nGisele B\u00fcndchen walks along a long catwalk to\n\u201cGarota de Ipanema.\u201d She is wearing her long\nblond hair down and a golden dress with a long\nfront slit. The scene was televised around the\nworld and is frequently mentioned again<\/em> in Twitter trends.<\/em>Gisele was the first Brazilian\nsupermodel to make it to the international\nrunways and, in the early 2000s, she was the\nhighest paid model in the world. Gisele sells a\nstandard of beauty that does not include the\nideal Brazilian butt\u2014indeed, a white standard.<\/p>\n

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Do all Brazilian women look the same? Of course not. Catwalks and foreign trade prefer\nand actively favour bodies that come close to a westernized model\u2014the global north ideal. When\nlooking for body changes associated with racial or ethnic marks, such as wide hips and big\nbuttocks, larger breasts or more elongated eyes, white women seek exotic or sensual traits\nwithout becoming socially marked by new contours, like Melissa, interviewed for The Guardian<\/em>. She sought the procedure in 2018 to \u201cfill up her jeans\u201d and attract the attention of \u201cblack and\nmestizo\u201d men, who, according to the young woman, \u201clike curvy women.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Like hundreds of other categories, beauty is not one-sided. Within the same group, there\nare different standards of beauty, crossed by class, race, gender, age, ability, access, health. These\npatterns change according to the social, economic and political context in which we are inserted\nand over time. The development of surgical techniques and the training of professionals, as well\nas all scientific knowledge, does not take place in a vacuum. We are immersed in social\nrelationships that effectively build our understandings of the world.<\/p>\n

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The idealization of Brazilian butts does not refer only to the construction of ideal and\ndesired curves, sold through a surgical procedure whose growth has been expressive in recent\nyears. It is necessary to pay attention to the broader picture: the backdrop to the development of\ntechnologies and how they are disseminated, the public who has access to these services, and,\nabove all, the political and social aspects that underlie the possibility of the existence of certain\nbodily transformations.<\/p>\n

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