Mapping Out The Body Through Images

I like to think of my body as my own body. After all, when I wake up in the morning and go to brush my teeth I am the one who decides to do the brushing even if grudgingly and groggy eyed. It's probably safe to say that everyone likes to and or often does think of their embodiment as autobiographical. Yet, we all know our actions are not isolated to the originality of our unique personalities. Not only do I brush my teeth but I whiten my teeth (after all I am a chronic consumer of coffee). While, I may brush my teeth because it is hygienic I go above and beyond hygienic standards. Essentially I am conforming to another ideal, the ideal that pearly whites are more attractive than stains.

In this oversimplified but everyday practice on my body you can see both agency and powerlessness. My agency is in my refusal to give up coffee and a personal preference for white teeth because I think they look nice but when my practice of whitening teeth is contextualized in larger society my decision is one that plays into ideals that women should be feminine and to be feminine is to be pristine and have pearly whites. Clearly according to every Listerine and Orbit Gum ad, who is going to want to kiss a girl without eye blinding white teeth? Teeth have pre-inscribed meanings because they are attached to the woman's mouth, which is often interpreted as both a sensual and sexual part of a woman’s body. The ideal of white teeth applies to men as well as women, showing that both men's and women's bodies are sites of negotiation for agency and powerlessness. Victoria Pitt ingeniously refers to this negotiation as a "body project" signifying the constant evolution of battles played out on the body. Constructions of sex, gender and sexuality make the experiences of men’s and women’s body projects vastly different.

Our body projects are influenced by other images of bodies and we see these images all the time. Advertisements illustrate ideals to be emulated while propelling stereotypes. Sexual images of men provide understandings for men what it means to be masculine, chiseled and a buff six-pack. No one I would encounter at Allegheny looks like and of the men in Dolce & Gabbana Ads I see. Even models are photo-shopped and airbrushed and they are supposed to be the standards of beauty. Ads provide norms and standards albeit oftentimes exaggerated ones. The exaggeration of male and female bodies is a capitalist ploy to keep the consumer engaged in a constant attempt to achieve an impossible ideal because the images themselves are inhuman. This tactic keeps the consumer returning for the unachievable which is fueled by the desire to fulfill gender. Do advertisements just play upon the already docile beings we are like Foucault says? It is our docility that reinforces narrow constructions of what it is to be embodied. How do we go about addressing this docility?

Where does the ownership of our bodies actually lie? I would argue that none of use are autonomous but where is the line drawn on ownership of our bodies, especially when we are so easily influenced by advertisements.