Docile Bodies

            This image has a big underlying message in it, which is that love handles are not good and people should not have them, especially women. Through the use of Foucault’s theory about docile bodies, I can clearly dissect this image and uncover the truth about societies perception of what the female body should look like.  In this ad, we can clearly we can see that Katy Perry is looking super fit and is a good template of what the typical woman should look like today. Through this image, our ideas about having a certain body type are being altered.  Pop Chips are tying to say, if you eat our snack then you will not get love handles because we hate love handles.

             If we take a look at the weight watchers campaigns, in relation to docile bodies, then we can also see this idea that having this slender body type will make us happy. This certain impression has been placed in our mind that we want to be healthy and happy, but if we go beneath the surface, we see that we can only be happy because we fit the norm of what society wants. That is what the docile body theory is trying to convey in this photograph. Jennifer Hudson and Katy Perry are very famous celebrities and they are super skinny, so in return I should try my best to eat right, in the hopes that one-day I too can look like them.

                                                                                                       

Image icon

Iconic images are very prevalent in American history, and are still being used as major icons in everyday life. Of course, most everyone in America has seen the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter. Back in the 1940’s, Rosie was to encourage women to join the work force, while the men were away at war. Today, Rosie is taking on a new iconic role for many feminist women.

The connotative interpretation of Rosie is that she is a symbol for the second wave of feminism, which most people classify her as today. While Rosie is an important figure in the feminist movement, she was never meant be a symbol for gender equality, but rather just about labor relations. The feminist women of the 60s and 70s gave her a new meaning, and reshaped her intended purpose from just being a form of propaganda. Even though Rosie was never meant to be about women’s equal rights, she developed into something that would greatly empower women everywhere.

Today, Rosie has become an Internet and pop culture sensation. There are posters of the iconic image and you can even go on YouTube to learn how to do costume tutorials to look like Rosie. There are even pictures of celebrities dressing up like Rosie, and she has even made it into several TV shows. (Parks and Recreation)

Michael Shapiro, “Is an Icon Iconic?” Linguistics Society of America 84, no. 4 (2008): 815- 819, Accessed January 18, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40071104