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1 – 10 of 40The Wicked Queen in both the Grimm and Disney versions of Snow White exists as a cautionary tale of female vanity. Despite these nefarious beginnings, contemporary versions of the…
Abstract
The Wicked Queen in both the Grimm and Disney versions of Snow White exists as a cautionary tale of female vanity. Despite these nefarious beginnings, contemporary versions of the character in children's and young adult fiction reimagine the Wicked Queen as pitiable. She is still a villain, but her actions are explained as the result of loneliness, parental abuse, and a persistent belief that she is not beautiful enough to be worthy of love. This change in the Wicked Queen's motivations from innate to circumstantial is reflected in the tagline for Valentino's Disney Villains series, ‘Evil Is Made, Not Born’. My reading of these new sympathetic depictions of the Wicked Queen builds on Cristina Santos's discussion of patriarchy and reproduction, as well as other critical discussions of fairy tales and gendered bodies. Focusing specifically on the magic mirror as metaphor, I discuss these new depictions of the Wicked Queen in the context of body dysmorphia. While these novels undo the good/bad and maiden/crone dichotomies of the fairy tale, these readings also shift much of the blame for the Wicked Queen's actions from innate failings of her gender (vanity) to the cultural structures surrounding female body image (dysmorphia). As contemporary reworkings of fairy tales seek to disrupt these narrative patterns and move away from harmful portrayals of gender, sexuality, aging, and physical disability, they risk falling into existing patterns linking mental illness to violence or evil.
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Victoria Rodner, Amy Goode and Zara Burns
To better understand the uptake of cosmetic procedures in the wake of Instagram, this study aims to unravel how the aesthetic labour of influencers acts as the packaging of the…
Abstract
Purpose
To better understand the uptake of cosmetic procedures in the wake of Instagram, this study aims to unravel how the aesthetic labour of influencers acts as the packaging of the cosmetic servicescape. In doing so, the authors contribute to theorising of aesthetic and emotional labour within the services marketing literature, fleshing out the bodywork of influential others not as employees but endorsers, who act like the “walking billboards” (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003) for the cosmetic service industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a dual qualitative approach to data collection, coupling netnographic material from Instagram posts with 16 in-depth interviews with female Instagram users who have undergone or hope to undergo cosmetic surgery. Using mediated discourse analysis, the authors weave their visual and discursive data together for a richer account of the commoditisation of cosmetic surgery.
Findings
Adopting a postfeminist neoliberal lens, where women are viewed as aesthetic entrepreneurs who are constantly working on the body and the self, the findings of the study reveal how influencers’ aesthetic and emotional labour help package, propagate and demystify the cosmetic servicescape. Through their visual storytelling, we see how influencers help endorse (local) cosmetic services; commoditise cosmetic procedures through the conspicuous display of their ongoing body projects whilst masking the labour and pain involved; and how face-filters that use augmented reality (AR) technology foster new forms of (digitised) body dysmorphia.
Originality/value
The authors shed light on the darker side of social media and body-enhancing technologies, where tales of body transformation trivialise cosmetic intervention and AR technology induces a digitised body dysmorphia.
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Jefferson Marlon Monticelli, Ivan Lapuente Garrido, Marcelo Curth, Luciana Marques Vieira and Fábio Dal-Soto
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of SOEs on institutions. The authors argue that in some cases there are differences in institutional shape between the shape…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the influence of SOEs on institutions. The authors argue that in some cases there are differences in institutional shape between the shape that is actually demanded by an institution’s institutional environment and the shape that the institution itself believes is demanded of its institutional framework. The authors observed a behavior specific to institutions that change their institutional shape in response to demands, irrespective of whether these demands are legitimate, and this behavior was primarily in response to demands from governments and SOEs. The authors call this situation institutional dysmorphia and contrast it with institutional isomorphism.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is characterized by the qualitative approach and descriptive form. It is also a documentary study employing the systematic review technique and critical appreciation in a research group. The case of the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES) is analyzed to examine the different relationships between Brazilian SOEs and BNDES. It used secondary data provided by reports, papers and relevant magazines. The authors compare them with the conceptual purpose originated in the Medicine field.
Findings
The study is illustrated by the case of the BNDES and the various different relationships between Brazilian SOEs and BNDES are examined. This is a qualitative and descriptive documentary study, employing the systematic review technique. Specific behavior is observed in institutions that change their institutional shape in response to demands, irrespective of whether these demands are legitimate, and these demands mainly come from the government and from SOEs.
Research limitations/implications
The authors use of secondary data from only one country that was used to present these arguments. The focus was restricted to the institutional framework comprising one institution and SOEs. Private firms were not considered in this institutional framework, but they must be included in a macro-environment. Institutional pressures are dynamic and asymmetric. The dynamism of institutional change was not evaluated, and neither was the evolution of the relationships between government, SOEs and institutions. Finally, researchers need to understand not only top-down models of institutional effects but also the institutional process that incorporates both institutional influence and firm responses.
Originality/value
The term institutional dysmorphia is proposed through the contrast with concepts such institutional isomorphism, with reference to the institutional logics and institutional complexity of these institutions’ and SOEs’ environment. The situation described institutional dysmorphia happening in emerging countries context and might open new avenues for research.
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Jessica Strubel and Trent A. Petrie
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how dimensions of body image relate to product involvement among gay men.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how dimensions of body image relate to product involvement among gay men.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey consisting of body image and product involvement measures was administered to 147 self-identified gay men. Multiple regression was used to examine the relations of the significant body image variables to each of the consumer behavior outcomes in separate analyses.
Findings
The more the men were behaviorally invested in their appearance predicted a higher frequency of shopping each month for apparel and grooming-related products. The stronger the men’s psychological drive to have a lean body and the more they focused on their appearance and invested in their looks, the more likely they were to view apparel as important to them. The more psychologically and behaviorally involved the gay men reported being with their appearance, the more importance they gave to grooming-related products.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was drawn primarily from a college population, limiting findings to this age cohort.
Practical implications
The findings of the current research demonstrate the importance of appearance management products to the gay market, where commodities are often used to enhance or maintain a perceived self-image. Retailers can use this information to establish appropriate service options and effective marketing initiatives.
Originality/value
This study replicated others that have investigated gay men’s involvement in consumer products. However, the current study looked at the relationship between involvement and body image.
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Dawn‐Marie Walker and Hercules Eli Joubert
This study seeks to gain some understanding about the attitudes of anabolic‐androgenic steroid (AAS) users towards the media and whether their constructs of masculinity are…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to gain some understanding about the attitudes of anabolic‐androgenic steroid (AAS) users towards the media and whether their constructs of masculinity are influenced by this. It also aims to explore their attitudes towards health information.
Design/methodology/approach
A self‐completion questionnaire containing 35 items of both open and closed questions was designed for the study. All participants were English‐speaking, injecting male steroid users, 16 years or older whose trigger for using was confidence and self‐esteem, and were registered clients at either of the two included UK needle exchange services.
Findings
Participants and other AAS users were open about their use to each other, but not to people external to that sub‐culture. They denied media influence, although they thought that most men in the media with muscular bodies used AAS. They associate masculinity with strength and muscle. They seemed knowledgeable about the health implications of AAS, but would not tell a health professional unless asked directly. There appears to be a sub‐culture normalisation regarding AAS use, with the trivialisation of health messages, their minimisation of the possibility of negative effects happening to them, and comparison of oneself to others they regard as inferior in some way.
Originality/value
The paper explores the need for a credible and non‐judgmental source of information for users of AAS.
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Sociological research on transgender and gender nonconforming (t/gnc) people has emphasized the interplay between identity and institutional contexts as constraining through…
Abstract
Sociological research on transgender and gender nonconforming (t/gnc) people has emphasized the interplay between identity and institutional contexts as constraining through dominant ideologies on sex and gender. In contrast, feminist research focused on embodied trauma has demonstrated numerous prospects for healing. In bridging these two fields of study through a socio-phenomenological lens, this research shows how consciousness emerges, facilitating the development of bodily agency. Empirically, the paper examines whether t/gnc people can use movement-based activities for healing, and how that healing occurs in particular spaces. In reflection of the impacts of insidious traumas on both the body and mind, this paper radically re-centers the body to consider the potential for healing through movement. Through an analysis of in-depth interviews with t/gnc people on their engagement with movement-based activities, I argue that participation in movement, on one’s own terms, enables a practice of bodily freedom. Moving beyond constraint and regulation, bodily agency requires a degree of bodily awareness (consciousness) that can emerge through participation in movement-based activities in t/gnc-centered and “personally-public” spaces. These results show that movement-based activities support t/gnc people in healing from the impacts of insidious traumas. These findings have empirical importance, exemplifying the power of fostering intentionality through movement practices, as well as theoretical implications for understanding the role of the body when exercising agency in processes of healing from embodied oppression outside of formal therapeutic landscapes.
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Simmone Howell and Bec Kavanagh
The teenage girl constructs her identity amidst a chorus of conflicting voices. She both replicates and resists the patterns of good girl/bad girl as displayed by earlier…
Abstract
The teenage girl constructs her identity amidst a chorus of conflicting voices. She both replicates and resists the patterns of good girl/bad girl as displayed by earlier generations, trying to figure out who she is and how she might live in her body, in the world.
Evil women – bad girls – defy the binary definitions of good and bad, both in body and spirit. They are the bad feminist, they are the Sea Witch, they are the art monster. But when we claim the monster as our role model, we commit her (and ourselves) to the constraints of the patriarchy – replicating a predetermined way of being a girl. There must be a way to define ourselves beyond these constraints. How does one become the monster?
Teen identity is constructed via research, rehearsal and performance: the trying on of multiple possible selves. One person's performed identity becomes the benchmark that others measure themselves against.
Like Courtney Love, who said she didn't want to be with the band, she wanted to be in the band, we all want to belong. We all want to stand out. How sharply we carve the edges of ourselves to fit.
This interactive ‘Fakebook dialogue’ allows Bec and Simmone to draw a line through theory and personal experience, bringing the voices of academia to life, and imagining them in conversation with ourselves and the women whom we have resisted, used as role models or temporarily dreamed ourselves into being. Our piece is set in the nexus of the body and the self. We incorporate autotopography and self-representation as shaped by shared cultural objects to interrogate existing modes of replication and resistance and try to imagine the monstrous shape of our true identity.
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