Biomedicine and Makeover TV DISSERTATION
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Bio-logics of Bodily Transformation: Biomedicine and Makeover TV DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Visual Studies by Corella Ann Di Fede Dissertation Committee: Associate Professor Lucas Hilderbrand, Chair Associate Professor Fatimah Tobing Rony Associate Professor Jennifer Terry Assistant Professor Allison Perlman 2016 © 2016 Corella Ann Di Fede DEDICATION To William Joseph Di Fede, My brother, best friend and the finest interlocutor I will ever have had. He was the twin of my own heart and mind, and I am not whole without him. My mother for her strength, courage and patience, and for her imagination and curiosity, My father whose sense of humor taught me to think critically and articulate myself with flare, And both of them for their support, generosity, open-mindedness, and the care they have taken in the world to live ethically, value every life equally, and instill that in their children. And, to my Texan and Sicilian ancestors for lending me a history full of wild, defiant spirits ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v CURRICULUM VITAE vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION vii INTRODUCTION 1 Biopolitical Governance in Pop Culture: Neoliberalism, Biomedicine, and TV Format 3 Health: Medicine, Morality, Aesthetics and Political Futures 11 Biomedicalization, the Norm, and the Ideal Body 15 Consumer-patient, Privatization and Commercialization of Life 20 Television 24 Biomedicalized Regulation: Biopolitics and the Norm 26 Emerging Perspectives on T.V. and Medicine 33 Medical Makeover TV: Context 36 Surveillance, The Clinical Gaze and Reality TV 39 Chapter Breakdowns 43 CHAPTER 1: HOARDERS: TV AS TREATMENT, THE TELEVISUAL LANGUAGE OF MEDICINE 50 Hoarders: Making Over Mental Illness 65 Neoliberal Positions, From Self-Help to Self-Care 85 Common Threats: Socio-Economic Parameters for Pathological Collecting 104 CHAPTER 2: THE BIOMETRIC LIFE: EXTREME WEIGHT LOSS, THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC, SCIENCE AND AESTHETIC EVALUATIONS OF LIFE THROUGH THE NORM 115 Formulas for Health: Weight Loss Narratives, BMI and Living versus Existing 127 Meredith: Medical Knowledge, Personal Transformation and Consumer Choice 132 Medical Subjects: Biometrics, Health and Norms 140 Chantall: Statstics, Norms, Race and Knowledge 146 Nurse Trina: Crises in Stratified Medical Knowledge 151 Social Bias: Fat Rights, Gender, Sexuality, Economic Viability 155 iii CHAPTER 3: TRANSFORMING GENDER OR RECLAIMING THREATENED TERRITORIES? THE SWAN, SEX CHANGE HOSPITAL, BEAUTY, THE NORM AND THE SUBJECT 167 Introduction: Gendered Embodiment from Social Problem to Biomedical Solution 167 The Swan 176 Sex Change Hospital 203 Necessity & Justification: Suffering, Social Legibility and the Biomedical Subject 231 CHAPTER 4: E! THE TRANSMEDIAL BODY, AND BIOMEDICINE AS MEDIA PRODUCTION 239 Producing the Transmedial Body 246 Botched—Plastic Surgery’s New Wave 262 Plastic Surgery and the Female Professional 281 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am lucky to have had the generous support and determination of a brilliant group of scholars in The Ph.D. Program in Visual Studies, as well as that of the community of academics I met and shared time and work with in graduate school, and my family. Without the unwavering support of my family and closest friends I would not be in the position to have worked towards this degree. I thank my mother and father for always letting me find my own way and for supporting my goals. I thank my brother William for his love, for the long conversations and arguments that helped shape my thoughts, and for the strength and depth of his belief in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. Thank you to my brother Jeven for his unwavering love and perspective. I thank Emily York for her tremendous friendship and love, and for keeping me a human being. And, I thank Zephy and Mazzy whose daily love, patience, and encouragement made the writing of this dissertation possible. And, I thank my grandparents whose various gifts for words, commitments to equality and social justice, wild spirits, staggering style and swift intellect, and genuine beliefs in a better future are continuing to materialize through their children and grandchildren. It was among my peers and colleagues that I came upon many of the ideas that would slowly emerge as this dissertation topic. In particular, Sarah Kessler and Laurel Westrup who listened to countless ideas that have all been a part of this process. And, to Candace Moore who has not only countenanced the entirety of my intellectual life, but contributed to it as well. I will always admire all of these women as friends, colleagues, and as models of strong female and queer scholarship. My professors within The Ph.D. Program in Visual Studies continue to inspire me through their examples of brilliant scholarship. I would especially like to thank my dissertation committee: Lucas Hilderbrand, Fatimah Tobing Rony, Jennifer Terry, and, Allison Perlman; as well as Lyle Massey and Bliss Cua Lim for their intellectual guidance throughout graduate school and the writing of my dissertation. This project shifted a great deal over the course of my time in the department and I owe each of these scholars a tremendous debt of gratitude. I have the deepest appreciation and admiration for my advisor, Lucas Hilderbrand, who continues to offer unwavering guidance and support as well as unparalleled insight and conversation. This dissertation would not be possible without his generosity, time, and patience. v CURRICULUM VITAE Corella Ann Di Fede DEGREES 2002 B.A. with High Honors in Literature, emphasis Modern Literary Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz 2009 M.A. with Distinction, Program in Cinema and Media Studies University of California, Los Angeles 2016 Ph.D. Program in Visual Studies, University of California, Irvine FIELDS OF STUDY Visual Culture, Science and Politics; Biomedicalization, Biopolitics and Media; Mass Culture, Medicine and Subjectivity; The Body as Biomedia; Gender, Sexuality, and Representation; Queer Theory; Critical Theory; Feminism; Critical Race Studies; Science and Technology Studies; Film and Television TEACHING AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE 2013-14 Teaching Assistant, First Year Integrated Program, How Race Is Made, University of California, Irvine 2013-14 Lecturer, Program in Film and Electronic Arts, California State University, Long Beach 2012 Lecturer, Film and Media Studies, University of California, Irvine 2010-13 Teaching Assistant, Program in Film and Media Studies, University of California, Irvine 2008-09 Research Assistant, Center for the Study of Women, University of California, Los Angeles 2008 Teaching Assistant, Program in Cinema and Media Studies, University of California, Los Angeles 2007-08 Research Assistant, Program in Cinema and Media Studies, University of California, Los Angeles 2007 Teaching Assistant, English Dept., University of California, Los Angeles vi 2002 Teaching Assistant/Undergraduate Teaching Fellow, Modern Literary Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz RELATED PROFESSSIONAL EXPERIENCE: 2012-16 Script and Production Evaluation, Department of International Development, Sundance Film Institute. 2004-08 Art director, Graphic Design and Label Relations, Mordam Records / 2003-04 Writer-researcher, documentary film production, Earthlinks, non-profit. 1998-2001 Managing Editor, Krsek Publishing PUBLICATIONS “Viral Culture at Risk: Remix Culture and the Dematerialization of the Politics of Location” Sampling Across The Spectrum. Ed. Laurel Westrup, David Laderman Forthcoming Anthology, Oxford, 2013. “Queer Birds: Cheryl Dunye’s The OWLS Stages the History and Future of Old Queers and New Gays.” UC Irvine Feminist Transnational Times, Spring 2010. Editorial Staff, Journal of Popular Music and Society, 2011-present; UCI Octopus, Visual Studies Journal, 2009-2010; UCLA Mediascapes Journal 2007-2009. CONFERENCES “Refiguring Metamorphosis in RuPaul’s Drag U and Game of Thrones.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2013. “Refashioning Queer Counter Culture: Liquid Sky’s Avant-Trash Aesthetics and the Detritus of the Present” UCLA Queer Studies Conference 2011. Co-Director of 2011 UCI Visual Studies Conference “Invisible Subjects: Bodies, Spaces, Disciplines.” “Queer Coordinates: Digital Mapping and the Organization of Sexual Publics” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2010. “Anatomy As Pathology: Bodies… The Exhibit, the Plastinated Form of Difference and the Spectacle of Medicalized Posthumanity” Thinking Gender, UCLA, 2011. “Capitalism Is The New Punk: DIY Culture and Economic Change” Society for Cinema and Media Studies, 2009. vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Bio-logics of Bodily Transformation: Biomedicine and Makeover TV By Corella Ann Di Fede Doctor of Philosophy in Visual Studies University of California, Irvine, 2016 Associate Professor, Lucas Hilderbrand Professor, Chair This dissertation began as an attempt to understand how biomedical concepts and practices, which undermine the salience of norms drawn from the “natural order” are relayed through mass media and inform self-understanding, social being, self-care, and practices of everyday life. The project tracks makeover TV’s valorization of the metamorphic or transformative body as an ideal that emerges through, and across, various contexts in science and popular culture. This genre of programming is one of the few sites at which the aesthetics of biotechnology are made visible in non-fiction