Plastic Bodies

"Material Girl"

In this article Bordo discusses issues of the human body in postmodern culture in media and art. She addresses issues of body modification and uses different celebrities, such as Michael Jackson, as examples of what she likes to call "polysurgical addicts" or "scalpel slaves". Part of this discussion was about advertising and its controversial ad campaigns to promote "the perfect bodies" and trying to enforce "normality" and what should be beautiful. The second half of the article is mostly dedicated to Madonna and her ever changing styles that are constantly critiqued whether or not she's portraying her ideas in a positive or negative light. The video for "Open Your Heart to Me" is addressed with an interseting argument on whether or not she was just showing off her body or if she had a positive message to the video.

"Body Worlds"

Body Worlds is an art exhibition and idea created by Gunther Von Hagens in which he plastinates human body parts that will keep them frozen in time. He actually invented the technique of plastination which is pressing the plastic into the cells rather than just encasing the parts with plastic. This allows him to mold the parts and actually create sculptures with them. At first his practice was looked at as very controversial but now is actually catching on more as a new way of teaching biology. Even celebrities find it amazing, here's what Jenifer Aniston had to say, "To BODY WORLDS—I am speechless. This was remarkable. Thank you!". Theres actually a whole list of celebrity quotes about the exhibit on his website because we all know that celebrities are definitely the most credible source of opinion on this subject.

Terms

Plastination- technology for preserving anatomical specimens with the use of reactive polymers developed by Gunther Von Hagens.

Polysurgical addicts or Scalpel Slaves- insecure people typically of the upper class that are obsessed with the idea of a perfect body and use plastic surgery to attempt to achieve that impossible goal.

Male Gaze- the generalized male perspective, which in this case means a perverted objectification of women.

Pigeonholed-to assign to a definite place or to definite places in some orderly system.

Questions:

1) Do you think the message of Madonna's video for "Open Your Heart to Me" was meant to be seen as a positive message or just a way for her to show off her body using the "male gaze"? Younger viewers are very impressionable, how do you think they would view the video?

2) Why is it ok to refer to the objectification of women as the "male gaze"? Isn't this term just suggesting that the every male objectifies women?

3)Why is plastic surgery so controversial, all health risks aside, isn't it just another form of designing the way you look just like getting tatoos, piercings, building muscle, or even the clothes you choose to wear? Body modification has been practiced throughout human history, why do you think that it's now being so criticized?

4) Why do you think The Body World's website chose to use quotes from celebrities instead of using actually credible resources such as scientists, doctors, professors, or artists? Why does the general population give such a shit about what celebrities think?