Commodification of Asian Femininities in Cha’s if I had your Face.

The commodifying schemas of beauty politics delve into the process of reshaping the identities of Asian women in Asian fiction. This paper scrutinizes the transformative journey of Kyuri, an enchantingly beautiful and achingly plastic salon girl, as depicted in Frances Cha's novel, If I Had Your Face. Set against the backdrop of the vibrant metropolis of Seoul, South Korea, Kyuri's narrative represents the profound yearning of Asian women deeply immersed in the allure and sophistication of glamour and beauty. Employing Naomi Wolf’s Beauty Myth, this article examines the multifaceted experiences of the Asian women portrayed in the novel. The consumer-driven beauty industry leads them to commodified xenofeminist futures. In the highly competitive realm of the beauty industry, the quest for physical perfection compels Asian women to undergo transformative facial procedures, seeking unrelenting pursuit of an idealised standard of beauty perpetuated by the glamorous world and media. Repeated surgical interventions for artificial beauty standards ensnare them in a disquieting xenofeminist future that celebrates techno-material and antinatural bodies. In this paradigm, the characters in If I Had Your Face grapple with the unsettling and dehumanising consequences of their pursuit of unrealistic plastic beauty: a dystopic future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]