The Locality of Plastic Bodies: Korean Reality TV, Celebrity, and Bimaxillary Surgery

Abstract

This article examines how Korean reality television has endorsed bimaxillary surgery through the deployment of the celebrity body in the early 2010 s. Although the production of a plastic surgery-related reality programme is not a local phenomenon, the media discourse of bimaxillary surgery has disclosed the impetus of locality in the social construction of external beauty and self-transformation. With a critical discourse analysis of bimaxillary surgery in Korean reality television shows, this study first argues that some comedians and ‘has-been’ celebrities are employed to emphasize the aesthetic and psychological benefits of the corrective surgery. Secondly, audition programme participants contributed to shaping bimaxillary surgery as a technology of self-improvement to survive in the K-pop industry. Finally, the beneficiaries of Korean makeover programmes embody bimaxillary surgery as a rational option for youthful and attractive looks. This article concludes that such media narratives of bimaxillary surgery disclose a negotiating process of local biopolitics within the logic of neoliberal capitalism.

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