culture schlock

what does representation tell us about the images offered us? how much resistance is there in the reading of these images? how much acceptance, internalisation and reproduction of the ideologies suggested?

if we are to believe that an image has a direct effect on the reader, how is this effect achieved?

for instance, if there is an image of a slim woman and the reader is not slim or doesn't believe themselves to be slim, will that image make the reader feel badly about their body?

it all depends, of course on the individual. although there are those who would like us to believe that all images have a direct impact and are the CAUSE of that impact DIRECTLY, this isn't always going to be the case with every person: if it were so, propaganda would be far more successful than it is.

certain images can appear to produce certain collective effects. there was an interesting experiment conducted by Marie Claire magazine where they used the same image of a zaftig woman in a bikini with two different headlines: 'i think i'm fat, do you?', 'i think i'm sexy, do you?' and a similar percentage agreed with each statement although, interestingly more agreed with the sexy statement (55%/66%). The term for this kind of reading is 'anchorage' - Barthes believed that the text accompanying an image determined how that image was read, even when contradictory statments were made, as in this case. However, as pat an experiment as this kind of thing is, one has only to look at the Dove Campaign 'For Real Beauty' to see how people's real opinions shine through, especially when faced with a direct 'choice' on one image. it could be argued here that the 'choice' factor prompted people to form/voice an opinion, but one gets the impression that if the ads had been 100% positive then the 'fat cow', 'type II diabetes' etc comments would still have been scrawled across them.

what this illustrates to me is, as with most things in life, it is not as cut and dried as theory would like it to be.

what i aim to discover in my theses is how individual women respond to such imagery, what they already think and believe about their own health and bodies, how they might accept and/or question the images and statements presented to us regarding health, weight, bodies and attractiveness.

it will be a difficult yet interesting journey.

it's a while since i read any of the social theory on the body. i of course read for my research proposal but have pretty much put that aside since. right now i am getting to grips with some of the basic introductory texts for my social research degree. it's all inter-connected. as i explained in my previous blog, reading a jackie stacey essay on Feminist Theory and her section on theories of the body inspired me.

what i need to concentrate on for this degree and also for the phd thesis are these issues regarding the body:

- how discourses of health are promoted and aimed at the individual's responsibility for their own health.

- how the body is portrayed in culture and society, particularly the fat body, and for the research degree particularly the 'woman's' body.

- the pleasure discipline dichotomy of health promotion, aesthetics and the self.

- the way in which women incorporate (or not) these issues into their own senses of self and including their ideas of their own bodies.

this is a somewhat crude way of putting it, however, it's some of what is important to both theses.

what i am continually aware of is how the body, health, diet, food are central to many women's lives. i don't doubt this is the case for men as well. it's interesting to compare the two actually. i am coming from an observational point where i currently work with women in the majority. one woman, who is new has obviously announced that she is on a diet. the first i knew of this was when she was tucking into a bacon sandwich and told me that she was doing so because she had lost half a stone and felt that she deserved a treat.

now to many, this would be a defeatist oxymoron. however for me - a staunch anti-dieter - it was a window of hope. she's on a diet, however she isn't giving up the pleasure of food. another collegue who while she told me that she finds the topic of my thesis fascinating is possibly the worst one for being obsessed with her body, diets and all the shim sham that goes along with it. however she has taken a new tact which i have never seen before - commenting on the new girl's diet (i shall call her marie) and the fact that she has seen her 'break it' - commenting at the time that she was eating a packet of crisps (marie - 'they are low calorie!') and later again when asking how the diet was 'going' commented that she had seen her eating crisps. marie defended herself by saying that as she had been ill that week it wasn't a good idea to diet, you should eat or you don't recover as fast.

so here we have this, as i see it: a woman on a diet who is aware that food is also a pleasure that shouldn't be totally denied; a woman who is aware that dieting isn't a good idea if you are ill - your body NEEDS food; and another woman (i shall call her maureen) who constantly needs to comment on her own figure, eating habits, dieting etc and has now begun to comment on someone else's diet and eating habits!

also, and this to me was very telling, maureen chose to ask marie about her diet as we were leaving work, so she asked her in front of three other people, and then made the crisps comment also in front of all of us, thus undermining and criticising marie's diet in public (and more tellingly, this was after marie had said that she had lost half a stone - jealousy driven crisp comment from maureen?). reflecting on this i can only think that this was some kind of either conscious or subconscious effort to undermine marie in some way. this may seem like i am going too far and it is slightly out of the sociological realm! after all women discuss diets in public groups all the time and this is part of what is interesting for me, however i know maureen and there was just something about this, the comment thrown in 'i saw you eating crisps the other day' when marie had already 'defended' her choice to do this at the time. the judgment, the public 'exposure' these to me are all elements of the diet-mentality: it is a competition, it is about comparison - 'am i fatter than her? am i as fat as her?' - it is about judgement and feeling judged.

i've noticed that all the women i work with (and there are ten) talk about their weight, diets, exercise and sometimes comment on the bodies and habits of others (women and men). this is no revelation, however it is CONSTANT. there is a constant apology whenever something is put into the mouth, although treats are often provided. the men i work with never mention any of this. and that's not because they are men. i know men for whom this is an issue. i myself rarely ever comment on such things but i have mentioned my exercise routines on occasion and i am aware that this is a way of me saying, 'see, i am not a fat slob. i am probably fitter than the lot of you'. i am as guilty as anyone else, even while being fully aware of the issues involved.

there is often a judgemental slur in regards to treats too. there are a handful of them who will comment on certain people being responsible for eating most of the treats - 'we'd better have some of these before "helen" gets to them', 'oh, these have gone down..."helen" must have been at them'. and i note the irony in that they do this as they THEMSELVES are tucking in! it seems to me that it is a diversionary tactic - diverting what they see as their own guilty greed onto someone else they can label greedy in the guise of a joke. also, passing judgement onto other's eating habits and the suggestion that treats should be consumed sparingly, not enjoyed plentifully.

don't get me started on the time that everyone had pedometers...

once i had realised that i had to write ANOTHER dissertation for my social research MA (duh!), i began to think about what i could do.  my good pal Lorna suggested i do something related but not the SAME as my phd as i will be scribbling about that for the next three years...

so i was reading some social theory and it came to a bit on gender and how the concept of 'woman' became contested in feminist theory and i thought - 'it would be good if i could write about this'.  a previous phd idea of mine had been regarding the gendering of entertainment and looking at what the concept of gender means and why it is applied to certain genres of entertainment.  i always wanted to return to this in some way.  then i had a eureka! moment - when women are dieting, what are they trying to achieve? a smaller body, a lesser body, sometimes and often a STRAIGHTER body ('bulge', 'buddha belly' etc etc).  so i thought, 'what is the body of a woman?  what is a feminine body?' and 'when thinking of what a woman "looks like", what IS that?'

so this led to my sudden excitement that i would, in this study, get to look at concepts of gender as social and cultural construction and what this means when women are trying to ALTER their body, often to look anything other than the idea of 'woman' and 'feminine' (if i am speaking here of the curvaceous body, the hour glass, boobs, hips etc etc).  what happens when a woman's body is NOT this, naturally? these were all questions zooming around my head.

now, today i had another eureka!  i was reading an essay on the differing concepts of Feminist Theory by Jackie Stacey (she's good, i like her, it's really accessible) and she was writing about embodiment, women's theorising on the body, which is obviously a major part of my theses.  my train of thought went to the 'ultimate body of woman' which could be read as the pregnant body and the fact that these celeb diets are often post-birth diets.  i thought about various women who have been featured losing weight rapidly post-birth and i remembered that notorious quote by Elizabeth Hurley - "I've always thought Marilyn Monroe looked fabulous, but I'd kill myself if I was that fat.''  i didn't realise that she'd said that first part. i thought she had just said 'i'd kill myself if i was as fat as marilyn monroe.' (as that is all that is usually quoted).  and i thought - THAT'S what i will call my dissertation!  and i will concentrate on the portrayal of the post-birth celebrity diet, (and also, i think the dove campaign - and its backlash).  as always, this is probably much too much for 16,000 words.  but it's exciting, it's a start, it's getting my brain working.

it will be interesting exploring such remarks as Hurley's.  it makes me so angry.  but i have to put that aside if a) i can become a (relatively) objective sociologist and b) i'm to survive it and not combust.

corinna, Wednesday 17th August 2005, amended thursday 18th auguest 2005.