Summary
In 2021, a flight to Atlanta was delayed for two hours to accomodate for 24 wheelchair-bound women who had just received a little procedure known as the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL). This was not an isolated incident. In the mid-2010s, the number of luteal fat grafting (BBL) procedures increased by 103 percent, as did BBL-related deaths. It was ass-mageddon. So, in this episode, Hannah and Maia trace the history of the BBL back to its very sketchy origins in Brazil under the purview of superstar plastic surgeon Ivo Pitanguy and a prominent eugenicist named Renato Kehl, and the impact that the country’s national mythology has had on the prevalence of the BBL today. From Miss BumBum contests, to Kim K’s reality TV butt X-ray, to Antony Bumba’s viral parodies of the BBL on TikTok, how exactly did we arrive at a culture where lives are risked for the sake of having a large dumpy? Tune in to find out.
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SOURCES:
Carmen Alvaro Jarrín, The biopolitics of beauty: Cosmetic citizenship and affective capital in Brazil,” College of the Holy Cross (2017).
Cansancao et al, ““Brazilian Butt Lift” Performed by BoardCertified Brazilian Plastic Surgeons: Reports of an Expert Opinion Survey,” Plast Reconstr Surg, 144(3) (2019).
Dara Greenwood, “The BBL Bubble: How Social Media Fuels Body Modification,” Psychology Today (2021).
Rebecca Jennings, “The $5,000 quest for the perfect butt,” Vox (2021).
Banseka Kayembe, “Are we witnessing the end of the BBL era?” I-D (2021).
Daniel F. Silva, “The hidden anti-Black history of Brazilian butt lifts,” Washington Post (2022).
Mimi Thi Nguyen, The Promise of Beauty, Duke University Press (2024).
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I just came back from upstate New York. It was my first getaway to upstate New York. I had, |
| 0:07.3 | we rented a little cabin where it's kind of not really a cabin. It's just like at this little |
| 0:13.2 | attachment to a house that overlooks this insane view. It's up in the Catskill, so it's like at the |
| 0:19.4 | top of a mountain and it has this insane view of the sunset and stuff. And the people that live there are so cute, they take you on |
| 0:24.2 | hikes and stuff like that. But I really was up there and I was like, wow, am I a country girl? Do I need to leave the city? And then I came back to the city and I was like, I feel spiritually decrepit. In the city? In the city, yes. I'm just like, I think I'm feeling a bit fatigued with the city. |
| 0:38.3 | It's just like non-stop noise. And I yes. I'm just like, I think I'm feeling a bit fatigued with the city. |
| 0:38.3 | It's just like nonstop noise. And I mean, I of course, I grew up in a city, but New York is much louder than Toronto is. And my neighborhood is especially much louder than Toronto is. It's very noisy. It was just so nice to be around like green. My neighborhood has very little trees. and it just felt so good to be like, wow, I'm surrounded by nature. |
| 0:55.9 | I'm surrounded by trees. |
| 0:56.7 | I didn't really grow up being an outdoors. to be around like green. My neighborhood has very little trees and it just felt so good to be like, |
| 0:54.6 | wow, I'm surrounded by nature. I'm surrounded by trees. I didn't really grow up being an outdoorsy girl, but I think like the older I get, the more attracted to the outdoors I am. I do kind of want to go camping these days. And I wonder if part of that is just getting older. I'm now at this age where I'm like, I don't really, when I travel now, I don't really want to go travel to like a city. |
| 1:11.8 | I've done the city and now I'm like, I don't really, when I travel now, I don't really want to go travel to like a city. |
| 1:28.6 | I've done the city and now I just want to go somewhere that's extreme R&R. And I'm like, what does this say about me? Have I aged? But it was so nice to just be somewhere where you could just simply hear the birds tripping and you can see the stars. I totally get that. I get the appeal. I think I love the I love kind of settling in that when I know that there's an end date of me being retreated in the country. |
| 1:34.4 | But I think long term, the social element of country living, I think I just simply couldn't, |
| 1:40.7 | couldn't do it. But I do love nature. No, and I totally get that too. I mean, I've, you know, we're at the age where maybe like starting to think about the concept of raising a family and like what that would look like. And I've just been thinking more and more about how important it is to have people around you. If you were to have a kid, people who can help out, people who the kid knows, adults that the kid knows, other kids that the kids knows that aren't |
| 2:01.1 | just like from school, like cousins, for example. And that started to be kind of a factor in my life. |
| 2:05.6 | So yeah, I do think living somewhere more isolated would be difficult with that. Although I do |
| 2:09.4 | think that rural communities are actually somehow more interconnected and communal than the city is. |
| 2:16.2 | Once again, my neighbors, new neighbors moved in and I said hi to them on the stairs and they simply just blinked at me. And I was like, what? Like, are you guys allergic to politeness? Like, I don't understand what's going on here. They were, like, confused that you had talked to them. They're like, stranger dangering me or something. I'm like, I just want to talk to you. Like, I just literally want to have a conversation in foster community. But then again, I don't |
| 2:36.7 | know if I want a foster community with a bunch of 23-year-olds, I guess. That's, I guess. This is me being like, whatever. You're just a dumb bitch anyway. Oh, you don't want to talk to me. Well, you're stupid. |
| 2:47.5 | But yeah, no, it was so upstate is gorgeous. |
| 2:50.3 | I was thinking about this a lot. |
| 2:51.8 | I've realized recently that cities have rhythms and places have... But yeah, no, it was so upstate is gorgeous. I was thinking about this a lot. |
... |
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