American Mary and Body Modification: Nature and the Art of Change

At a turning point in the contemporary feminist “Frankenstein” film American Mary, Ruby (Paula Lindberg)—one of Mary’s future body modification clients—explains why she wants to change her appearance: “I don’t think it’s really fair that God gets to choose what we look like on the outside,” she proclaims. Ruby’s declaration at first seems to align well with scholars’ assertions that humans decorate and modify their bodies to separate themselves from the animals and nature, for, as genetic researcher Gillian M. Morriss-Kay argues, “Creating visual art is one of the defining characteristics of the human species.” Morriss-Kay agrees, suggesting, “The earliest known evidence of ‘artistic behaviour’ [sic] is of human body decoration, including skin colouring [sic] with ochre and the use of beads, although both may have had functional origins.”

 

Ruby’s desire to determine what her body looks like on the outside seems to take this characteristic just a little further, since, as anthropologist Enid Schildkrout of the Smithsonian states, “there is no logical reason to separate permanent forms of body art, like tattoos, scarification, piercing, or plastic surgery, from temporary forms, such as makeup, clothing, or hairstyles.” More extreme forms of body modification convey information about a person’s identity in ways similar to the more traditional and temporary choices people make to color their hair and shave their faces.

 

For Ruby, a fashion designer and owner of Ruby Real Girl designs, surgically changing her body provides some of the same results as fashion and makeup, except that those changes are more permanent. It seems to separate her from her natural “God-given” form and from the natural world it represents and inhabits. The claim is that animals change their appearance only because evolution has determined those changes ensure survival, both physical and sexual. And those changes rely on internal biological responses rather than deliberate additions from the external environment. A cuttlefish may change the color and shape of its skin and body to hide from predators, hypnotize prey, and seduce potential sex partners, but these survival adaptations are evolutionary rather than learned behaviors and draw on biology rather than the incorporation of external objects.

 

Yet we argue that this separation between humans and animals rests on a limited perspective of the natural world. Although the body modification illustrated in American Mary may amplify the drive for individuality found in makeup and hair changes, it does not necessarily separate humans from animals. Instead, it replicates the behaviors of animals from the bowerbird to particular species of spiders and caterpillars. When characters in American Mary modify their bodies to express their individuality and survive, they don’t separate themselves from nature; instead they align themselves with the animal world. When either animals or humans change their appearance, they gain an evolutionary advantage that assures their reproductive and biological persistence.