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Plastic bodies: Beings-not-of-the-world

Franklin, Alex

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Abstract

Employing a Heideggerian phenomenology of Being, this paper will argue that toys such as Bratz dolls, Barbie, and Disney Princesses contribute to an environment that fosters an ‘unnatural’ relationship between pre-adults and their ‘bodily nature’; arguably promoting an inauthentic, ideologically determined bodily schema via their design, embedment in anthropomorphising narratives, virtual worlds and attendant prescriptive forms of play, which contributes to a consumer culture that promotes early self-objectification by girls and young women
Further, it will be contended that young girls in particular are encouraged to conceive of their body as social ‘equipment’ and, as such, a ‘thing’ that is necessarily subject to socially sanctioned, volitive modifications. It will be argued that this results in an individual’s everyday relationship with their body lacking the directed, authentic concern necessary to be a fully ‘embodied’ being; that this results in the body being conceived of as social ‘equipment’; and that the assimilation of an inauthentic ‘they-self’ at a young age negatively effects their ability to be fully authentic and ‘embodied’ Beings-in-the-world.

Presentation Conference Type Conference Paper (unpublished)
Conference Name II International Conference: The Texts of the Body - Generating Bodies: Discursive Sexed Productions
Start Date Nov 30, 2010
End Date Dec 3, 2010
Peer Reviewed Not Peer Reviewed
Keywords Bratz, Heideggerian phenomenology, embodiment
Public URL https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/973383
Additional Information Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : II International Conference: The Texts of the Body - Generating Bodies: Discursive Sexed Productions


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