Book reviews Edmonds, A. Pretty Modern: Beauty, Sex and Plastic Surgery in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. 352pp (pbk) $24.95 ISBN: 978-0-8223-4801-6, $89.95 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-8223-4785-9. Alex Edmonds’ book Pretty Modern is a remarkable account of cosmetic surgery – or pla´ stica – in Brazil. Its attempt to locate cosmetic surgery as a specific cultural practice in a particular location breaks with rather tired debates about whether cosmetic surgery is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, explaining instead what pla´ stica means to its participants. The book entwines the views of both patients and surgeons – many of whom Edmonds spent considerable time with – in the notion of ‘aesthetic health’. Whilst Edmonds does not advocate cosmetic surgery, he argues that aesthetic health challenges the mind ⁄ body split of conventional medicine. As one Brazilian surgeon joked, ‘What is the difference between a psychoanalyst and a plastic surgeon? The psychoanalyst knows everything and changes nothing. The plastic surgeon knows nothing but changes everything’ (p.76). This sense of being able to affect the psychological via the surgeon’s knife is tied to ‘self-esteem’ – a notion that continues to puzzle, and the history of which Edmonds explores in some depth. He shows how the discourse of self-esteem is often deployed to mask social problems like poverty or racism, yet connecting self-esteem and ‘beauty’ provides a more holistic vision of the self. Beauty in Brazil is a national project: early in its history, Portuguese colonisers remarked on the beauty of existing inhabitants. During modernisation and after slavery, when many countries in Europe and North America were insisting on racial purity, Brazil began to celebrate ‘mixedness’. Brazil’s identity was conceived in terms of fusion – the blend of Latin and African sounds in samba music provided the perfect soundtrack for the Mestic¸ a woman’s dance. The beautiful Brazilian woman has brown skin, small breasts and a large round ‘bumbum’. She is imbued with the ‘erotics of impurity’ (p.131). Beauty, Edmonds claims, can be democratising in two ways. Firstly, natural beauty knows no class – having the ‘right’ assemblage of features is a coincidence of birth. Secondly, in Brazil, a large and successful social movement argued that beauty (in the form of cosmetic surgery) should not be just for the rich. Consequently, those who can afford to purchase their own anaesthetic and are willing to queue for lengthy periods in less than comfortable public hospitals, may access free cosmetic surgery – though it might not be the procedure of their choice. Whilst we could cynically say that this practice constitutes the Brazilian poor as guinea pigs for training cosmetic surgeons, patients are mostly delighted with the results. And international doctors clamour for residencies in Brazil to get ‘hands-on’ experience they could not access back home. The reputation of Brazilian pla´ stica, especially its premier surgeon Pitanguy, is also a strong source of national identity and pride, linking Brazil to the ‘modern’ in a globalised discourse of development. However, whilst the correct blend of features can bestow social capital to a ‘mixed’ body, there is also a ‘wrong’ mix. Edmonds points to the long and unacknowledged history of the marginalisation of dark-skinned Brazilians. Unmixed ‘Africanness’ can be considered ugly, yet it is not simply a question of shade. Instead some African features are defined as ‘excessive’ – especially facial features and hair. The broad, flat, African nose is itself considered a medical ‘indication’ for surgery, but when ‘corrected’, and mixed with other technologies like hair straightening, can reproduce a desirable mix. This is complicated, however, by the recent import of Black politics from the USA, which has proved useful in naming and contesting a racism that Sociology of Health & Illness Vol. 34 No. 1 2012 ISSN 0141–9889, pp. 154–160 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01451.x Ó 2012 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness Ó 2012 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA