Critical Study Notes

CRST 2A BODY CONSTRUCTS • What constitutes the ideal body? • What is a saleable body image? • How should we look, love and behave? • The Body is mutable and liminal. It is vulnerable and powerfully re-inventive. • The body in advertising becomes a warzone, characterised by threats, deficiencies and deferrals. • Appearance and sexuality are complex media issues. • Four concepts relating to the use of the body in advertising: anxiety, envy, glamour and sexuality (R Coward, 1996) SEEING THE SELF Body Shape Ideals • Throughout time the space that a body takes up has been of vital importance. • Representations of Ideal body shapes change as social, cultural and personal perceptions are altered. • Ectomorph / Endomorph / Mesomorph Body image going bad • FACT REMAINS: The ideal is idealised, and the possibility of the ideal being normal is rare. • THUS: People strive towards the ideal through manipulating the malleable elements of their body (weight being the most obvious) • THIS RESULTS IN DIAGNOSED EATING DISORDERS: o Anorexia Nervosa o Bulimia o BED – Binge Eating Disorder Other Ways we alter our bodies… • Smoking • Drug use • Over-exercising • Cosmetic Surgery Body dissatisfaction • Women are generally seen as being more dissatisfied with their bodies, and far more studies have been undertaken in this field. • The relationship between body obsession is not a new one. But, body obsession of old was viewed as religious ascetism and associated fasting. • Purposeful self-starvation and purging linked to extreme religious devotion as early as the 13th century. • St. Catherine of Siena, Angela of Goligno, Margaret of Cortona (& others) suffered from “Anorexia Mirabilis”, or the “miraculous lack of appetite”. • Proving their devotion to God, their strength, and their piety: these women would eat nothing but the Eucharist (and it is believed the pus from scabs of those who were ailing). It is also reported that they used twigs to induce purging. • Different from anorexia, as