Appraisal

 

Self-Transformation realised through themes of post-humanism, gender and body modification

 

I am concerned with addressing the controversial theme of transformation through various mediums, such as surgery - how they affect individuals and the repercussions of such extremist acts of self-expression. How far will individuals go in their pursuit of their ideal and how do people construct their unique idealised forms utilising current technology. What social and personal aesthetic ideals are they striving for and how does society influence one’s desire for change? Margit Shildrick writes about the theory of monstrous bodies being applicable to cyborgs, the biologically disfigured or body mods, which is applicable to my three case studies.

 

Robot/Human Hybrid: The Terminator (James Cameron, (1984)

Post-humanism and extropian theories seem to be a central theme in Terminator; once again humans have converged man and machine in the pursuit of forceful power by utilising technology to create a bio-mechanical hybridisation. 

         Arguably the best-known inheritor of the “cyborg” strand of posthumanism is what is now being called transhumanism. This is a movement that is dedicated, as the journalist and writer Joel Garreau puts it, to “the enhancement of human intellectual, physical, and emotional capabilities, the elimination of disease and unnecessary suffering, and the dramatic extension of life span.” (Wolfe, Cary. 2009. page, 14)            

 

The Terminator has been manufactured and represented to be durable and indestructible (which he ultimately proves otherwise) but is emotionless and unfeeling as a result. This is demonstrated in the scene in which he removes his own (biological) eyeball, without flinching, and proceeds to kill ruthlessly with total disregard for collateral damage: an automated shell. In this man vs machine themed film, it seems fears and theories surrounding such ideas have been realised:

          A prominent concern about enhancement technologies is that their use might compromise our humanity and transform us into something other than – and perhaps beyond – human, thereby jeopardizing our species. (Chan, 2013, page 54)        

 

This concern is fully realised in Terminator, as although he appears outwardly human, he is an autonomous machine who has overthrown mankind. 

Is Terminator a viable framework for transhumanist ideals to manifest? Certainly the cyborg fulfils several of Garreau’s criteria, with the exception of emotional capabilities. The word ‘enhancement’ appears a lot when reading about transhumanism - the overall enhancement of humankind. But who is to determine the criteria for enhancement? Enhancements seem to be personal to the individual, as Mehlman writes:

          an enhancement is an improvement if the enhanced person thinks it is one. (Mehlman, unknown,  in Cole-Turner, 2011, page 11)

 

It appears the majority of cyborg depictions (in films) have been negative: Blade Runner, West World, Robocop - all of these cyborgs have demonstrated mindless destruction and social upset. Their mechanised nature typically results in them being emotionless and destructive, acting as a human weapon for a selfish power conquest. The main concern arising from this then surely is that if cyborgs are the future, would they overtake the human race?

Society is portrayed in the media to be scared of technology. This could be because the realities of cyborgs have already been played out in celluloid. So why do we as a society still pursue advances in it so hungrily? This idea of seeking something that we fear alludes to a paradoxical dissonance and also links to Freud’s theory of the uncanny; a notion of both familiarity and threat manifesting through the same person, object, or event (Israeli 379). Scholar Julie Wosk writes: 

          artist’s images of automatons became central metaphors for the dreams and nightmares of societies under-going rapid technological change”. One of the most profound issues raised by new technologies: the possibility that people’s identities and emotional lives would take on the properties of machines.  (Wosk, in Bell, D and Kennedy, B. M. 2000 page 46)

 

Plastic surgery and other forms of body modification seem to be the extent in which post humanism has (so far) manifested in contemporary society with current resources. Although technology is constantly evolving and life expectancy has been pushed to record rates, we are not yet at the stage where biological skin has been fused with functioning technology to the point where they work in conjunction, independently from operated machinery, (i.e. the difference between being connected to an ICU and the independent Terminator).

However, from my research, it is evident that posthumanists and transhumanists seem concerned with manifesting their theories in more subtle ways, such as genetic engineering. 

 

Male/female hybrid. Taboo: Changing Sex (Lance Lewman, 2012)

The documentary Taboo: Changing Sex focuses on the transitions of several transgendered persons of different backgrounds, circumstances and society’s reactions. The universal consensus is that people find transsexuals an ‘awkward’ topic to discuss. Arguably the subject makes people feel uncomfortable because the transgendered directly confront the social construct of gender in an obvious aesthetic way, so in the event of social discourse, any partaker is confronted with it. 

      Transgender and transsexual people often experience discrimination based on gender presentation and identities.   (Levy, Barry S, Sidel, Victor W, and Edelman, Marian Wright. 2005, page 169)

 

In many means, transsexuals conform to gender roles religiously, as they are typically committed to being perceived as the opposite of their birth gender. Thus they draw upon the dichotomous gender construct to portray their psychologically diagnosed gender. 

             Judith Butler suggests that these appearances and styles are performative and produced in relation to symbolic norms and come to constitute what we know as gender. According to this perspective, gender is a bodily style, a way of donning one’s own body as a cultural sign.   (Butler, 1990, in Zowie. 2011, page 182)

 

In the documentary, Balian Buschbaum was an example of an extremely successful female-to-male post-op transsexual. An ex-olympic pole-vaulter, he started weight training double the recommended amount in an attempt to hinder any outward expression of female puberty. 

“He is such a classically handsome man and people can be quite unsettled by this when they learn that this body was originally female. We are of course much more accepting of someone who doesn’t rock the status quo, so if someone has transitioned beautifully and is performing seamless masculinity, we’re much more accepting of that” (Lewman, 2012, 7:46).

‘Passing’ means that one has attained their goal; society now perceives them as the sex their GID indicates they should have been born as. Obviously passing means there is no judgement socially as participants are oblivious to the gender transformation. This is when people like Christina, (trans example from Taboo: Changing Sex) challenge even the ideals and goals of transsexualism, as she doesn’t fall into the binary system of male and female.

Born a male, Christina Bruce has had hormones, facial surgery and implants, but has retained her penis and dates women . If necessary, she puts ‘female’ on a legal document, but is a true gender hybrid. “ I think western society is moving past the idea that there are only 2 genders. Everything exists on a continuum, gender is also on a spectrum. Christina has embraced gender variants in a terribly grown-up, mature and positive way” (Lewman, 2012, 27:20).

Society finds categorisation necessary in order to feel comfortable with what they are confronting and Christina’s undefinable being/gender raises questions. Is she technically a gay woman with a penis? What would her partner be labelled as in society? How would their sexual discourse function? Could marriage be an option for her?

        Identities that may not transition socially or legally from one gender to another, and who often wish to be recognized outside the gender binary .  (Davy, Zowie, 2011, page 173)

 

Australia now has the option of ‘gender X’ on passports as a recognition of gender hybrids. It seems the world, western in particular, has the predominant view that there are two binary genders. However in India, the Hijra has long been recognised as a third gender, though cast out by society and ridiculed. The bugees of Indonesia recognise 5 genders in their society, all of which are treated with respect, while centuries ago it was believed that women were just an inverted form of the male gender, and so there was only one true gender. It seems gender (its quantities and definitions) are defined by culture, society and its influences and that western cultures in particular are uncomfortable with anyone that doesn't succumb to the constructed categories. 

 

 Animal/Human hybrid. Animal Imitators (Justin Pembleton, 2003)

In the 18th century the science of physiognomy was as much a belief as religion. Johann Kaspar Lavater’s book “Physiognomical Fragments for the promotion of the knowledge and Love of Man”, was carried around by people so that it could be consulted upon meeting people, enabling them to ‘correctly’ determine their nature based on their physiognomy.

        For Lavater, morally beautiful states of being express themselves beautifully on the body, particularly on the face. Morally ugly or bad states of the soul express themselves with a negative countenance. In his view, the face is a general expression of a current state of mind. (Lavater, 18th century, in Wegenstein,2012, p24).

 

Although body modification wasn’t common practise in the 18th century, Lavater was judging people based on how aesthetically pleasing society perceived them to be. Clearly this theory of Kalokagatheia is in the spirit of Lavater’s book:

         In the sixth century BCE, Theognis and Pindar used the term kalókagatheia to indicate an intrinsic relation between physical beauty and ethical perfection.   (Wegenstein, Bernadette. 2012, page 22 )

 

Comparatively, current theorist Morgen L Thomas writes:

            It is not a question of whether people have inborn beauty or ugliness or of whether they are good or bad people. Instead, the movement is inverted: what is in someone’s soul will be visible on his countenance. (Thomas, 2012)

 

These century-spanning examples illustrate how society judges people based on the belief that outward appearances directly relate to the morality of one’s moral soul. But this was with regards to the biological unaltered form, whereas my case study, Animal Imitators, examines contemporary extreme body-mods and their motives for modification.

Stalking Cat (Dennis Avner) had been altering himself  both surgically and with tattoos for about 25 years before he died. He claimed that as a native-american, he had always felt like a cat, as they were his totem animal. He therefore sought to illustrate that through his appearance as was traditional practise. “It’s an interesting concept - transpecies, it’s sort of like transsexualism.” (Pembleton, 2003, 5:20). Although transpecies isn’t a recognised disorder, it could be argued that Avner had difficulties defining abject boundaries within his corporeal body identity, as he committed suicide in 2012.  

Avner underwent surgeries banned in the US and claimed that there are currently biological engineers working towards making fur possible (as a body modification for humans), which underpins theories of post-humanism pertaining to a different purpose.

          Extropians believe that the best strategies for attaining posthumanity to be a combination of technology and determination. (Bell, D and Kennedy, B. M. 2000, page 273:)

 

He underwent a process which made it possible for him to insert nylon ‘whiskers’ into piercings in his face. Kristeva identifies the process of abjection through the acts of a self-purger:

              I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which ‘I’ claim to establish myself. (Kristeva 1982, in Weiss, 1999, p42).

 

This process of body modification also relates strongly to the process of tattooing and surgery, whereby the partaker undergoes pain and loses a part of their original self in order to gain and establish their identity.

 The “lizard man”, Eric, surgically modified and tattooed himself, labelling himself as a ‘freak’ performer, receiving more crowds and attention by constructing his image partially based on societies’ preconceived notions of body-modifiers and their fascination with the abnormal body. However, as many theorists point out, in order to be able to identify the abnormal, one must first be able to identify the standard of the norm, which is virtually undefinable. 

Morgen, L. Thomas:

         By inscribing meaning and identity in visible ways rather than allowing society to project expectations onto them based on their gender, age, race, sexual orientation, and so on, non-mainstream body modifiers present a unique challenge to American conceptions of what is healthy, what is beautiful, and what is human. (Thomas, 2012)

 

Again, like the obviously transsexual members of society, non-mainstream body modifiers confront society with questions inscribed into and projected by their physical form. They also confront other social constructs, such as the constructed ideals of beauty, self-identity and the abject. In a sense, because these extreme body-mods have modified themselves to the point where they look inhuman, they now have a very obvious defined identity as a body-mod. And yet in another sense, they have lost their previous identity due to lack of no longer looking human, in-keeping with Kristeva’s process of abjection. 

 

 

Conclusion:

 In many ways, these topics are all branches of post-humanism and self-enhancement, carried out in different methods to fulfil the needs of the person undergoing transformation. As GID is a psychological disorder, modification is a necessity rather than a personal choice to modify oneself, although the modification manifests and progresses in very different ways depending on the person. I would certainly like to further examine other forms of transformation for my dissertation - perhaps temporary transformations, such as through the medium of drag, and how that implicates people and society as apposed to permanent surgeries. I would also potentially like to focus on society’s motives to perform hate crimes towards people that choose to modify to extremes, and why they are perceived as social deviants and thus outcast.

 

Word Count: 2225

 

 

 

Literature Review

 

          For my dissertation I plan to explore themes of body modification and social deviancy in films, focusing on how social deviants are represented to audiences and how physiognomy is used to portray them as deviants (whether they be naturally occurring biological physicality's or body modifications). For this, I will research further into Margrit Shildrick’s notion of the monstrous body and corporeal ‘normality’ (Shildrick, in Featherstone, 2000, p77), which explains that anything transgressing the norms of society is perceived as monstrous. Featherstone’s book certainly covered many areas of body modification in great breadth and depth, with modern primitives, tattoo sociology and postmodernism pertaining to and influencing my direction of research. 

 

I also plan to further explore Lavater’s theories of physiognomy and why disfigurement and ugliness were a reflection of low morality and whether they potentially still are. I feel his theories reflected yet modernly UPDATED by Morgen, L, Thomas in her article SICK/Beautiful/Freak: 

           Contemporary Western culture views the practice of non-mainstream (extreme) body modification as, alternately, an attention-seeking trend, the sign of a masochistic or sadistic personality, a symbol of AFFILIATION WITH a deviant group, or a symptom of psychological instability. (Thomas, 2012)

 

As body modification, as we now know it, was not available in Lavater’s time, Thomas provides an UPDATED perspective, which relates to current technology and body practises. However, I think it’s obvious that societies views are synonymous in both theorists’ ideas. Both of their perspectives will be useful for my case study Animal Imitators, which examines extreme body modification. Thomas explains how audiences will perceive a character with such modifications when presented in film. These are the opinions bred by society, and in-turn it is society which creates these bodies:

 

          It is clear that the individual human body mirrors the collective social body, and each CONTINUALLY creates and sustains the other. (Favazza 1996 in Morawetz, 2001, page xiii)

 

It has become apparent to me through Featherstone’s Body Modification; Theory, Culture and Society why people feel this way about body modification. Professor of Sociology and founder of a number of theoretical societies, he explains why historically, it was never used in a positive light. Body modification was a way of branding the class system to identify the criminal and poor, how to identify which Jew belonged to which concentration camp and (more recently) which gang you belong to, not to mention tattoo’s strong AFFILIATION WITH prison. 

 

Victoria Pitts also makes the point that the media has portrayed more extreme acts of body modification (such as branding) as sadistic, and infers that partakers in such practices are mentally ill self-mutilators (Pitts, 2003, in Featherstone, 2012, page 297). Even the term ‘modern primitives’ (coined circa 1970) seems derogatory, implying that these people are have basic physchological structures, capable only of giving in to their primal desires, making them uncivilised and dangerous. This term creates a symbolic boundary between ‘us’ and ‘them’. It seems obvious (as is explained by Morgen, L, Thomas) that partakers do not engage in these practises for the pain, but for the aesthetic outcome. The question that was apparent during my research surrounding this topic was: “Where does body-modification end and self-mutilation begin?” 

 

I found Thomas Morawetz’s Making Faces Playing God extremely insightful in giving an overview in the outlines of identity and the importance of recognition; explaining why society has often found the concept of twins slightly disconcerting. In chapter two, the Harvard graduate and legal professor explores the natures of transformation, the morality involving with changing oneself and the resulting implications such transformations can cause. He put-forth a question relating to Favazzas statement; is it people’s responses to us that make us who we are? He states that some physchologists argue that we are nothing more than society deems us to be - we are what people see us as. This seems inarguable, as when one conceives an idea, they base it on preconceived perceptions to create an image that will convey and translate a certain emotion. 

 

This idea could inform my main area of research which would be the theme of how the anti-hero is often represented with negative physical afflictions; portraying them as the antagonist even when they are in fact the hero. I will link this idea to examples such as Edward Scissorhands, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Horns - which all represent the protagonist in an aesthetically stereotypically negative way. It begs the question that if it weren’t for such deformities/body modifications, would there be any question as to their right as the protagonist? Whether it is only their physiognomy that causes audiences to question the character’s nature, or something more. I also think that further research into the portrayal of villains in film would be relevant research for my dissertation.

 

Despite western societies unquestionably negative views and associations of body modification, it is undoubtedly a fascination; 

          They paint, puncture, tattoo, scarify, cicatrize, circumcise, subincise themselves. They use their own flesh as so much material at hand for— what? We hardly know how to characterize it— Art? Inscription? Sign language?... All that excites some dark dregs of lechery and cruelty in us, holding our eyes fixed with repugnance and lust. (Pitts, 2003 page 15)

 

Stemming back to the freak shows of the nineteenth and early twentieth century which entertained crowds of people, unquestioning of their own morality in the viewing of (what they thought was) the physically alien: 

          foreign bodies, especially women’s bodies, were represented not only as essentially different than Western ones, but as uncultured, savage, wild, sexually unrestrained, and dangerous. (Pitts, 2003, page 16)

 

Physical ‘freaks’ being presented in this manner has also contributed to people’s perceptions of body-mods being dangerous and mentally ill. Even then, physical deformity alluded to mental instability and danger, linking clearly with Morgen, L, Thomas’ arguments, which I will use to inform my dissertation. Deformity is an area I haven’t explored yet, but I believe with further reading into societies views on the matter, this will also inform my dissertation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Bell, D. and Kennedy, B. M. (2000) The Cyber Cultures Reader. London: Routeledge

 

Cameron, J. (1984) The Terminator. USA

 

Cole-Turner, R. ed. (2011) Transhumanism and Transcendence : Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement. Washington, DC, USA: Georgetown University Press

 

Davy, Zowie. (2011) Recognizing Transsexuals : Personal Political and Medicolegal Embodiment. Farnham, Surrey, GBR: Ashgate Publishing

 

Featherstone, M ed. (2000) Theory, Culture and Society : Body Modification. London, GBR: Sage Publications,

 

Grimm, N, Jovanovic, Branka-Rista, eds. (2013) Beyond Humanism: Trans- and Posthumanism Anthropology, Ethics, Religion. Frankfurt

 

Kuwahara, M. (2005) Tattoo and anthropology.UK: Oxford International Publishers Ltd.

 

Levy, Barry S., Sidel, Victor W., and Edelman, Marian Wright. (2005) Social Injustice and Public Health. USA: Oxford University Press

 

Lewman, L. (2012) Taboo: Changing Sex. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XsHChmMykE [Accessed: February 21st 2015]

 

Morawetz, T. (2001) Making Faces Playing God. UK: Focal Press

 

Pembleton, J. (2003) Animal Imitators. [online] Available from: http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/animal-imitators/ [Accessed: February 21st 2015]

 

Pitts, V. In the Flesh : The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. Gordonsville, VA, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Palgrave Macmillan

 

Thomas, L, M. (2012) Sick /Beautiful/Freak Nonmainstream Body Modification and the Social Construction of Deviance. Sage Journals. [online] Available from: 

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/2/4/2158244012467787 [Accessed: February 23rd 2015]

 

Wegenstein, B. Cosmetic Gaze : Body Modification and the Construction of Beauty. (2012) USA: MIT Press

 

Weiss, Gail, and Haber, Honi F. (1999) Perspectives on Embodiment : The Intersections of Nature and Culture. UK: Routeledge

 

Wolfe, Cary. (2009) What Is Posthumanism?. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press