“The body - what we eat, how we dress, the daily rituals to which we attend to the body - is a medium of culture.” (Bordo) That culture is, roughly, a group of people and who they are, what they make and how they understand and create their reality. In more simpler terms, Culture and the human body are related. The body is a medium for culture, in a sense that, how the media portrays the body, usually glorifies that particular image.
Over time we socially construct this society that focuses on our physical attributes deeming what is “cool” and “hip” and what is not. Social construction is essentially saying that if we, as a people, had not built this idea, then it would not have existed. For example the MTV reality show, “Jersey Shore” seems to focus on and glamorize the “Jersey shore” lifestyle, i.e. partying, drinking and sleeping around. For the men, it is all about having the muscles and tattoos and always going to the gym, having nice clothes and stay clean shaven. In the women’s case, their bodies are bronze, from all the tanning. They have voluptuous or curvy bodies, whether real or fake. In the show this was referenced as "GTL", an acronym for Gym, Tan, Laundry, which was the process of how one took care of themselves.
This coincides with Susan Bordo’s docile bodies, which, illustrated in my example mentioned earlier, is how individual’s lives and bodies are shaped by outside influences. The show Jersey Shore glorifies having that type of body and living that type of lifestyle. This makes people envy their bodies or way of life. Therefore having an effect on society and culture. This is where you make your position. You can either try to achieve that kind of life or just be satisfied with your own. But with the pressures of society and everyone around you believing that that is what is cool, this becomes a social construct. And this is as simple as I can get it as I explained it to my five year old sister. :D
I have never seen Jersey Shore before (although my roommates had it on while I was cooking dinner the other day so I do know that they are in another country).
ReplyDeleteBut when you mentioned talking to your little sister about this, I was reminded of the time I spent watching The Lizzie McGuire Show, and how awesome I expected Jr and Sr high to be - I mean look at all the free time they had to hang out in the hallways, and they got to eat lunch outside, everyone knew just the right thing to say, and you always have your friends there to back you up when the school bully is picking on you. Oh how TV constructed my view of high school wrong. I think if I were your 5 year old sister and I watched a show like Jersey Shore (or a lot of other shows on TV these days) I would be very confused about life and how it works.
If you think about it - how much time do the people on Jersey Shore spend at work? Paying bills? Not as much as normal people do, I would presume.
Oh that little part at the end was suppose to be a joke. XD. I thought that this assignment was suppose to be us writing in layman's term to someone close to us to make it more simple so that they could understand. Maybe I read that wrong?
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