Eternally Young & Beautiful in Argentina

Buenos Aires, Argentina (photo credit: R. Soong)

Among Latin Americans of different nationalities, Argentines are the ones who have generated the most number of cultural myths.  On the occasion of the 1998 Summit of Americas in which 34 countries attended, Calvin Sims of the New York Times had to single out Argentina for special treatment:

New York Times, May 24, 1998, Calvin Sims: "Formerly Arrogant, Utterly Argentine"

Argentines have long taken pride in their arrogance, perhaps as a way of covering over their own insecurities about their real identity. They flaunt their European ancestry and culture to their Latin American peers, who have mixed or indigenous blood. Now recent social and economic reforms suggest that the Argentine reputation for haughtiness may no longer be deserved. The view was perhaps rooted in a misunderstanding of a people who have historically vacillated between grand sophistication and banality.
  
Argentina has one of the highest literacy rates and standards of living in the region.  It has produced world-class novelists, nuclear scientists, surgeons, architects, universities and cultural centers.  And few cities in the world can compare with the night life here.  Residents do not eat dinner until well after midnight and discos do not open until 2 a.m. and close after the sun rises.
 
Yet as a society, it tends toward the superficial, which has encouraged many of its most talented citizens to emigrate.  As a group, Argentines are obsessed with appearance; they are fashionably thin and well dressed, regardless of income.  At the same time, the country, which consumes inordinate amounts of beef and cigarettes, has a high incidence of anorexia.  Plastic surgery is also popular among both women and men.

This short extract covers many of the standard cultural myths about Argentina.  Here, we want to investigate the topic of cosmetic or plastic surgery.  While we are at it, here are a couple more articles about the alleged popularity of cosmetic surgery in Argentina.

The Atlantic Monthly, September 1998, Benjamin & Christina Schwarz, "Half A World Away"

Porteños are equally artful with their bodies. They're wild about plastic surgery and brag of their tummy tucks, breast implants, and reformed noses. Even the nation's President, Carlos Menem, proudly announced that he has had his hairline moved and his cheekbones touched up.  Cosmetic surgery is only the latest manifestation of porteños' self-absorption. Famously, Buenos Aires has more psychoanalysts per capita than any other city in the world -- so many, in fact, that a district has been nicknamed Villa Freud for the many analysts who live and work there.

Newsweek International, August 16, 1999: Reshaping The World

A TUCK FOR EVERY TUMMY: In "The Masks of Argentina," author Luis Majul estimates that one in every 30 Argentines has undergone cosmetic surgery. And with prices plummeting, face-lifts and nose jobs are becoming "democratized," says plastic surgeon Maria Cristina Zeaiter.  But the country's elite sets the tone; everyone from Diego Maradona to President Carlos Menem has gone under the scalpel.  Menem's ex-wife, former First Lady Zuelma Yoma, is a frequent client of cosmetic-surgery clinics.  But few Argentines are put off by such dangers. "Mankind suffers two great ills: aging and ugliness," says cosmetic surgeon Jose Juri. "Plastic surgery can treat them both."

The Guardian, October 6, 2002: Depressed Argentines put their faith in a pretty face

When Vilma Sartori turned 40 this year, surrounded by the devastation of the country's worst economic crisis in history, she decided to treat herself to the one thing neither the banks, nor the government, nor the 'delinquents' on the streets could take away: a facelift.  'In the middle of the mess this country is in, I just wanted something to make me feel better,' said Sartori, a paediatric nurse, who has cut daily living costs and used savings rescued from the crippled banking system for her 1,000 peso (£170) skin-tightening operation.  'No one can steal your face or your breasts. Not to mention the fat you've had removed. The safest thing these days is to invest in yourself,' she laughed.

Sartori is one of many Argentines exhausted by nine months of crisis since the economy collapsed under $141 billion public debts and the peso was devalued by more than 70 per cent. She and others have lost trust in the state and the banks and are spending any spare cash on improving their bodies. While car sales have fallen by more than 50 per cent this year and supermarket spending by almost 40 per cent, health clubs, beauty salons and plastic surgeons say business has returned to normal of late

'Demand has increased tremendously,' said Enrique Gagliardi, a Buenos Aires plastic surgeon, whose waiting room is full of customers from every walk of life wanting breast implants, facelifts, liposuction. 'When people are mentally scarred, they look for physical pleasure. It's good for their self-esteem,' he said.  Looks are crucial in this elegant city, whose inhabitants have always modelled themselves on Europeans.  As the economic crisis has forced half of the 36 million population under the poverty line, some of the 21 per cent unemployed are resorting to surgery to improve their chances of finding a job.  'In Argentina, appearances are more important than competence when it comes to getting a job,' said Dr Jose Cortes, a surgeon in the central Andean city of Mendoza.

Cosmetic surgery became a thriving industry in Argentina in the 1990s, when economic boom gave ordinary Argentines access to the same surgery that their idols used. The country imported more silicon implants per capita than any other and one in 30 Argentines went under the knife, according to Luis Majul whose book, The Masks of Argentina, describes the snips, cuts and toupees used by the country's most famous figures, such as former President Carlos Menem and football hero Diego Maradona.  Surgeons say politicians are turning to them to wipe out bags under their eyes and freshening their faces in the run-up to March's presidential elections. Tourists are also cashing in on prices that have dropped by more than a third since the peso was devalued in January.

But surgery is an option only for some. Others are pumping muscles or pampering themselves to preserve some self-esteem and escape the stress of a seemingly endless economic and political collapse. Megatlon, a health club chain, registered a 30 per cent rise in memberships in July and August compared to last year and is planning to open two new branches.  While struggling to adapt to the new economic reality, the nation's pride has been battered by allegations of corruption, criticism from abroad and the International Monetary Fund's refusal to provide financial aid without major reforms. Germany's former Bundesbank chief Hans Tietmeyer recently said 'Argentina has fallen into insignificance by its own fault and possibly for ever.'  While protest graffiti fight with the names of discredited presidential candidates, another message, part of a supermarket advertising campaign, is plastered on car windows giving people something positive to think about: 'Argentine women are the prettiest in the world.'

Cultural myths may be myths after all.  The desire to be young and beautiful forever is probably common to many cultures.  So what is the reality in Argentina?  Here, we will refer to some survey data from the TGI Argentina study conducted by IBOPE Argentina during 1999 and 2000.  A total of 12,346 persons between the ages of 12 and 75 years old were interviewed.  Each person was shown the statement, "I would pay a lot to look young."  Overall, 8% of the people 'agreed completely' and another 8% 'agreed somewhat.'  The table shows the demographic breakdowns.

(IBOPE Argentina, TGI Argentina)

We should out that the statement "I would pay a lot to look young" does to refer directly to expenditures on cosmetic surgery as such, but only to a theoretical desire to look young and beautiful.  If we had asked for direct expenditures, we would have expected the results to correlate with socio-economic level.  As it were, the responses were lower in the upper socio-economic levels.  

In looking at the above table, we are not surprised to find that the responses are lowest for young people who are young after all.  The responses become higher as people grow older, but once people are past 65 years old, the responses fall down as perhaps no amount of money can make them look young again.  Women have higher responses than men.  Within the sexes, the highest responses come from men between the ages of 45 to 64 years old and women between 35 and 64 years old.  Responses are also significantly higher among those with failed marriages.  These data support the words of Miranda France in her travel book, 

The obsession with looks, many porteños agreed, made relationships problematic in Buenos Aires; the country's divorce rate was the highest in South America.  One of the capital's dating agencies announced publicly that it was to close after five years' business had yielded only one marriage (and that was looking rocky).  The agency's director appeared on television, exasperated by failure.  'I've organized more than a thousand dates and only one of them came to fruition,' she told the reporter.  'Argentines don't know how to form proper relationships.  The men want someone young and beautiful.  The women all want money.  Nobody's realistic.' (p.87)

Every woman in Buenos Aires, no matter her size, wanted to be thinner.  Looks, but more particularly women's looks, were a persistent, urgent topic of conversation.  Argentina spent more money on cosmetic surgery than almost any other country in the world and was fast developing the highest incidence of anorexia.  Two-thirds of school girls had ambitions to become, not lawyers, doctors or scientists, but models --- and this was somehow not felt to be a national disaster.  When a German 'supermodel' visited Buenos Aires to promote lingerie, she was accorded more honours than a head of state, meeting the president twice and travelling around the city in a fleet of limousines, pursued by thousands of fans.  Her thoughts on beauty and lingerie commanded front pages for five days. (p.85)

Although men also spend over the odds on clothes and cosmetic surgery, in practice they could do whatever they liked; it was only unforgivable for a woman to age or grow fat.  Female television presenters over a certain age --- and there were precious few of them --- wore long bleached hair and the fixed smiles of multiple face-lifts.  Magazines imposed an aesthetic regime that was tyrannical.  If a celebrity had taken too long to recover from a pregnancy or had allowed her buttocks to 'fall' --- a phenomenon that fascinated and appalled porteños --- she was chastised with a merciless close-up and a cutting editorial advising to get in shape.  Prime-time television entertainment included competitions in which men tried to guess a woman's vital statistics by running their hands over contours of her body, or tested their skills at matching a row of women's barely covered buttocks to the correct faces.  Real women were used in these contests.  They never stopped smiling as the contestants squeezed and prodded them. (p.86)

Our stated intention is to investigate whether this is a cultural myth or fact.  At the outset, we have posited that the desire to look young and beautiful may be universal.  So this must be a question of relative degree.  In the following table, we show the corresponding data from the corresponding TGI Surveys in four other major Latin American countries:

Surprise, surprise, surprise!  The people in Argentina showed the lowest rates of agreement! 

WWW REFERENCES

• Asociación Psicoanalítica Argentina
• La Sociedad Argentina de Cirugía Plástica
• Sociedad de Cirugía Plástica de Buenos Aires

PRINT REFERENCES

• Miranda France.  Bad Times in Buenos Aires.  The Ecco Press:  Hopewell, NJ.  1998.

(posted by Roland Soong on 7/14/00)

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