Media Images and the Disciplining of Bodily Ideologies
Kim Craig
ANTH 539: The Body
Prof. Deborah Elliston
Fall 2019
KEYWORDS: Body, Advertisements, Discipline, Normalization, Representation, Ideology
Figure 1: Still from John Carpenter's film, They Live (1988)
Bearded Man: The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are non-existent. They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices.
Rich Lady: [into her wristwatch] I've got one that can see!
INTRODUCTION
Created in reaction to Reaganomics, John Carpenter’s 1988 sci-fi film, They Live, reflects a satirized vision of unrestrained capitalism where an alien race disguised as media moguls and politicians control society unbeknownst to their human subjects. The aliens order their subordinates to “obey”, “consume”, “reproduce”, and “conform” through subliminal messages which are mediated through relentless advertised images (Franco 1988). It’s only with the use of magical sunglasses, which Slavok Žižek refers to as “critique of ideology glasses”, that the humans can see the truth behind the propaganda, revealing the structures that allow the aliens to rule (Fiennes 2012).
Loosely using the structure of this narrative, this paper will scrutinize three images taken from the course readings in order to extract their latent messages regarding the human body. I argue that the perpetuation of these images simultaneously represents and reinforces ideologies which covertly divide bodies into categories of “good” and “bad”. Revealing how the ads operate by exploiting anxieties in order to create desire, I contend that the continuous provocation of these fears normalizes their associated desires producing subjects with self-regulated bodily habits. These habits inadvertently perpetuate the same categorization of bodies resulting in rigid ideologies. The three ads I have selected will explore the beliefs associated with the bifurcated categories of gender, size and race.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
To analyze the images, I rely on three overlapping frameworks borrowed from theories by Michel Foucault, Sara Ahmed, and John Berger.
The most influential of these is Michel Foucault’s theory of disciplining bodies through regimes of normalization, where systems are created to guide bodies into habits of self-regulation. These habits, which are determined by those in power, are performed by subjects with the intention of molding themselves in “good citizens”. Obedience to these habits benefit the state, further bolstering their power (Foucault 1979, 138). I will apply this framework to corporations, who also predetermine categorizes of good and bad people. Spreading their doctrine via advertising, the corporations push their consumers to adopt bodily habits that benefit the companies, thus keeping them in business (power). Whether directed by state or corporation, the suggested habits, if reproduced long enough and by enough people, will become normalized actions and their resulting bodily classifications will become solidified ideologies.
Foucault’s theory is not only useful to regard the structures of power, but also the means through which power is maintained. In his chapter on Docile Bodies, he points out that repetition of the structure works to normalize it (Foucault 1979, 149). He describes how the same system is used across each state institution so that subjects instinctively know how to operate and conform in any space. Whether in a prison, hospital, or school, it’s clear who is in charge and how one should behave based on their location and filing within the ranks. He argues that this predictable structure creates docility among the subject who, because of the repetition, assume that it’s just the nature of things, and will automatically conform (Foucault 1979, 169).
Corporations use a similar tactic of repetition in their advertisements which are not only repeated across multiple modes of communication (TV, radio, magazines, bus stop benches, social media...etc), but also duplicated in the messages of rival corporations. The directive that Gillette is sending: “you need to hairless in order to be sexually desirable” is also being spread by Venus and all other hair removal companies. Although in competition with one another, their shared message normalizes the position, thereby creating a social fact that female legs must be bare.
For those that do not comply with these demands, Foucault explores the history of punishing of “condemned bodies” (1979, 3-31). Whereas traditionally, a disobedient person would be subjected to public suffering as to be made examples of in the form of public executions or torture, more recently those in power have taken to hiding condemned bodies from public sight. The socially deviant are locked away behind the walls of prisons or mental institutions, which thereby only allow well-disciplined, docile bodies to be seen in public (Foucault 1979,7-11).
Figure 2: Visualization of Foucault’s modes of punishment (by Kim Craig)
I argue that the same method is being applied to advertisements. The images in circulation are only of those who obey the practices associated with the corporation’s ideal of a “good body”. The shaming of non-compliance no longer needs to be done through those in power as the subordinates take it upon themselves through their interactions with one another. Obedient subjects that have bought into the ideology police noncompliance through, often subtle, shaming methods. Consider the looks an unshaven woman gets from other women on the beach. The side eye has replaced the public execution in the world of consumption.
Sara Ahmed’s theory of normalization through habitual orientation is equally as useful. Like Foucault, she exams how ideologies become normalized and what happens when a subject steps out of line. She uses the analogy of a deviated line on tracing paper to show how quickly a break from routine is noticed (Ahmed 2006, 66). While reading her book, I was reminded of the Japanese proverb, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down” which addresses the social urge to correct deviant behavior. Returning to the analogy of the hairy legs on the beach, Ahmed would call this woman’s behavior “queer”, because it breaks from the monotony of hairless legs, making the unshaven appendages stand out. Applying her theory to the world of corporate advertisement, we see that the abundance of repetitive imagery creates normalized orientations from consumer (A) to product (B) reinforcing the associated ideology. The categories of good and bad bodies are divided by who is “in line” (good) and who is out of line (bad).
Figure 3: Visualization of Ahmed’s theory of queer orientation (by Kim Craig)
Lastly, John Berger’s theory that advertisements exploit people’s anxieties to guide desire through a visual language is extraordinarily helpful in analyzing the three ads (1972). Berger insists that these anxieties are based in fears of exclusion. Examining how advertisements operate, he reveals how the images create dread while simultaneously offering the promise of hope through the consumption of the product (Berger 1972). I argue that his ideas can be applied similarly to Ahmed and Foucault’s division of good/bad bodies, although for Berger they would be limited to dichotomies of rich/poor and sexy/repulsive (Berger 1972, 143-144). In analyzing the ads, I will identify the anxiety manipulated, and apply his theory that all promotions sell one of the two basic human desires: “Get Rich” or “Get Laid”.
ADVERTISEMENT ANALYSIS
This course’s readings have covered the various ways humans have understood and controlled their bodies over the course of history. Many of the articles mentioned the use of media depictions to illustrate how particular societies frame the body. I have selected three of the types of images the authors have discussed to dissect. The questions guiding this analysis are as follows: What platforms was used? Who produced the content? Who was the targeted demographic? What anxieties were exploited? What did they tell us about what qualifies as a good body? What’s the message?
AD 1: SIZE
In Susan Greenhalgh’s article, “Weighty Subjects”, she addresses American’s obsession with being thin (2012). Highlighting several media images including, what she calls, “Fat TV” , she demonstrates the country’s fixation with thinness (Greenhalgh 2012, 472). The television show that epitomizes this genre is NBC’s The Biggest Loser. The image seen below, is the standard promotional format for the show, including a before and after images of a contestant, along with their corresponding weights. I argue that the numbers are meant to be associated with the social value of the person: the lower, the better. The example I have selected depicts a woman who has lost almost half of her body weight. In the after image, she is seen revealing more skin, with primmed hair and make-up, and a big smile. All these details allude to a rise in her level of attractiveness. The dream of thinness that is being marketed is one where the viewers (regardless of gender) can also lose weight to become more sexually desirable. The fear of being undesired and the hope of getting laid are sold despite the lack of a physical product being exchanged. The not-so-subtle suggestion here is that thin bodies are good, and fat bodies are bad. I offer that the message Carpenter’s ideology glasses would reveal might be:
Fat people are losers. Shed pounds to become more desirable.
FORMAT: Television Program
TARGETED DEMOGRAPHIC: Working-Class Overweight Americas
ANXIETY: Undesirability
DREAM: Get Laid
AD 2: GENDER
Like Greenhalgh, Bordo’s article, “Reading the Slender Body” (1990), also explores the topic of weight, but with a larger focus on gender. She notes how women have used thinness as a means of androgyny to liberate themselves “from a domestic and reproductive destiny” allowing professional women to compete with men in the workplace (Bordo 1990, 103-104). This is made evident in the ad below, where the social dynamic Bordo describes is embodied in the clothing being marketed. The loose-fitting suit with large shoulder pads depicted direct women to emulate maleness by hiding their feminine features and adorning themselves in male-marked apparel in order to be taken seriously. The ad shows a serious woman looking sternly into the camera. Her long hair and high heels signal to us that she is a female, but her body from neck to ankle lack any feminine characteristics. The sentiment here is that men are superior to women therefore women should be more masculine. The anxiety the ad exploits is the fear of not being financially successful. If women cannot reach the professional levels of their male colleagues, they will make less money and be unable to achieve social success. For Berger money is always tied to social value. As he puts it, “the sum of everything is money, to get money is to overcome anxiety (Berger 1972, 143). In a John Carpenter reality, this ad might read:
Dress like a man. Hide all your “fleshy female parts” to become successful.
FORMAT: Magazine Advertisement
TARGETED DEMOGRAPHIC: 1980's Business Women
ANXIETY: Social Value (in the form of monetary success)
DREAM: Get Rich
AD 3: RACE
In a separate article by Bordo, “Material Girl” (1997), she examines the racist messages transmitted through advertisements for products like contact lenses, skin lighteners, and hair relaxers which target black women. The ad below for Raveen exemplifies the kind of marketing Bordo describes. The image is of a businesswoman answering the phone with a smile. She sports a short bob with hair so straight you can nearly count the strands. She is a black woman, which leads viewers to assume this might not the natural consistency of her hair. The text reinforces this idea reading, “Was it her Resume?...OR Raveen” implying that it was not her talent that granted her the phone call she is so happily receiving but rather it was her hair. A reverse reading of this ad suggests that if she had kept her natural “black” hairstyle, she might not have been considered for the job. Bordo relates this to echoes of the “comb tests” that barred black people with coarser hair from entering certain white establishments in the 19th century (1997, 342). Over a century later and the message prevails, hair styles associated with white people are more valuable (good) than those of black people (bad). Had this ad been used in They Live, it might have read:
The more you resemble a white person, the more value you are.
FORMAT: Magazine Advertisement
TARGETED DEMOGRAPHIC: Black Business Women
ANXIETY: Social Value (in the form of monetary success)
DREAM: Get Rich
CONCLUSION
The three ads collectively insist that we must change ourselves in order to become more lovable or successful (Berger 1972, 131). The producers of these images, like Foucault's vision of the state, decided which bodies are good and bad, and implement systems that allow subjects (consumers) to comply in a way that feels like an independent decision toward self-improvement. The trick is to make the oppressed feel as if it is their own choice to comply to the standards of the oppressors. Corresponding, the three theories used to frame these ads operate under the assumption that bodies are malleable and therefore maintain a level of agency. Each theorist recognizes the existence of free will, but suggests that certain pressures (be it punishment, shame, or fear) act as incentivizing devices to adhere to the dominant suggestion, creating a normalized path of least resistance.
In summary, bodily ideologies are both represented and reinforced through the media’s use of repeated images which exploit anxieties to create desire. The continuous prodding of these vulnerabilities normalizes the associated desires thereby producing subjects with self-regulated habits. These habits inadvertently perpetuate a division of bodies into categories of good and bad resulting in dogmatic ideologies. Like the aliens in They Live, the goal for those in power is to go undetected, their agendas obscured from the subjects they dominate. In the words of John Carpenter:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
● Ahmed, Sara. 2006. Queer Phenomenology. London: Durham Press.
● Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books.
● Berger, John (Writer). 1972, January 29. Episode 4. Ways of Seeing. London, England: BBC2.
● Bordo, Susan. 1997. “Material Girl”: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture. Reprinted in The Gender/Sexuality Reader. Roger N. Lancaster and Micaela di Leonardo, eds. Pp. 335-358. New York: Routledge.
● Bordo, Susan. 1990. Reading the Slender Body. In Body/Politics: Women and the Discourses of Science. Mary Jacobus, Evelyn Fox Keller, and Sally Shuttleworth, eds. Pp. 83-112. New York: Routledge.
● Fiennes, Sophie (Producer/Director). 2012. The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology [Motion Picture] United Kingdom: Zeitgeist Films.
● Foucault, Michel. 1995 [1979]. Discipline and Punish The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books/Random House.
● Franco, Larry (Producer), & Carpenter, John (Director). 1988. They Live [Motion Picture] USA: Universal Pictures.
● Greenhalgh, Susan. 2012. Weighty Subjects: The Biopolitics of the US War on Fat. American Ethnologist 39(3): 471-487.
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