Complicating the Plastic Surgery Conversation

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

So many of you have been asking for an episode on plastic surgery culture for so long — but I knew I couldn’t do it until I had the perfect co-host. Someone deeply familiar with the allure and contradictions that infuse the world of plastic surgery… but also conversant in plastic surgery as a form of gender and class performance. I needed Arabelle Sicardi — and was so thrilled when they agreed to come on the show. This conversation will take you to some very unexpected places: it will challenge you, alarm you, and I can promise you’ll never look at Elon Musk the same again. This is one of my favorite episodes we’ve recorded — I think you’ll quickly see why.Thank you to the sponsors of today’s episode!Celebrate Earth Month and make the switch to Blueland today. Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/cultureStop putting off those doctors appointments! Go to Zocdoc.com/culture to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor.Show Notes:Subscribe to Arabelle’s excellent newsletterThe piece from Arabelle’s newsletter I reference re: “Beauty is Going Backwards”A write-up of the BYU study of Utah women and plastic surgery that Arabelle referencesOn Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: my piece in Culture Study and the Culture Study Pod episode I did with Sara Petersen:Will MomTok Even Survive This?!?!My conversation with Sam Sanders re: Nicole Kidman’s Resting Rich Face:Nicole Kidman's Resting Rich FaceAnd now some PLASTIC SURGERY ASMR!!!***And if you want the running belt I mention in the AAA section — this is it.***We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:What’s going on in AMERICAN PARENTING CULTURE (broadly conceived) right now (with Melissa Wenner Moyer!)TEXAS Culture for our ongoing culture-of-place seriesHow/Why Private Equity is Fucking Everything UpDark Academia (as in, the literary genre)Van/Skoolie/RV LifeAnything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) hereFor this week’s discussion: How has your thinking on plastic surgery changed over time?

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
0:10.1	And I'm Arabele-Sikardi. I write, oh, it's such a long name. I need to workshop, but it's,
0:15.7	you've got lipstick on your chin on substack, and it's all about beauty and power and just beauty gossip, I guess.
0:23.3	So one thing that you've written a lot, or I've seen you reference a lot, is that beauty is
0:28.3	terror. Yeah. So can you explain this a little bit? Of course. So I have been chanting this
0:35.5	probably since I was in college, so easily 15 years.
0:41.0	It's its own teenager by now.
0:43.3	And I've always been really obsessed with the connection between beauty and capital and crisis
0:52.0	and the things that we do to ourselves and to each other
0:56.4	for just like a little bit more power, a little bit more ease, a little bit more comfort
1:01.0	in a world that punishes ease and punishes rest.
1:06.5	And I've always kept an archive of the different ways that beauty is used to punish or demean people
1:12.4	or to subjugate and create a more carceral world, like a crueler landscape.
1:18.5	So beauty is terror is basically shorthand for the fact that we punish each other and ourselves all the time
1:27.3	for this ideal that we're
1:30.7	never, ever, ever, ever going to reach or achieve.
1:35.4	But sometimes we let our fears control us, right?
1:39.0	It's just the way that we are as humans and how we're raised and that fear also breeds innovation within us.
1:46.6	Like, I mean, from the very beginning, it's like, are we afraid of the dark?
1:50.0	We bring fire.
1:50.9	Like, you know, like, it's literally built into our DNA to find different ways to navigate the things that terrify us.
1:58.4	And the way that we pursue beauty, I think, has so much to do
	...

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