International Journal of Cultural Studies-2010-Coy-657-75, artykuły, papers
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//-->International Journal of CulturalStudiesGlamour modelling and the marketing of self-sexualization : CriticalreflectionsMaddy Coy and Maria GarnerInternational Journal of Cultural Studies2010 13: 657DOI: 10.1177/1367877910376576The online version of this article can be found at:Published by:Additional services and information forInternational Journal of Cultural Studiescan be found at:Email Alerts:Subscriptions:Reprints:Permissions:Citations:>>Version of Record- Nov 26, 2010What is This?Downloaded fromics.sagepub.comby Anna Dom on October 14, 2012ARTICLEINTERNATIONALjournalofCULTURALstudies© The Author(s), 2010.Reprints and permissions:www.sagepublications.comVolume 13(6): 657–675DOI: 10.1177/1367877910376576Glamour modelling and the marketing ofself-sexualizationCritical reflectionsGMaddy Coy and Maria GarnerLondon Metropolitan University, EnglandThis article explores glamour modelling and the surroundingdiscourses of empowerment and objectification through the lens of iconic UKmodel Jordan (aka Katie Price), who became famous as a glamour model, andparticularly for the size of her surgically enhanced breasts. We include analysisof recent UK television documentaries on glamour modelling –Glamour GirlsandPage Three Teensto illustrate current debates about objectification andagency in mainstream commercialized sex, and situate this alongside evidenceof a rise in cosmetic surgery and suggestions that young women increasinglyview glamour modelling and lap/pole dancing as attractive career options,embedded in the discourse of empowerment. How far does claiming Jordanas embodying feminism serve to challenge gendered power relations?GABSTRACTGKEYWORDSGmodellingGempowermentGfeminismrespectabilityGsexualizationGGgenderGglamourThis article explores glamour modelling, the self-sexualization of youngwomen in popular culture and the surrounding discourses of empowermentand objectification. We draw on the iconic UK glamour model Jordan (akaKatie Price) as she is represented and perceived as a role model for youngwomen. The key element of the ‘Jordan’ celebrity persona is the sexualizationof her self and body – framed as successful entrepreneurship and, for someyoung women, regarded as an iconic example of female agency. Here we includeanalysis of recent UK documentaries on glamour modelling –Glamour Girls(BBC Three, June and July 2008) andPage Three Teens(BBC Three, 18 June657Downloaded fromics.sagepub.comby Anna Dom on October 14, 2012658I N T E R N AT I O N A LjournalofC U LT U R A Lstudies13(6)2008) to illustrate how the sexualization of popular culture positions glamourmodelling as a career path within reach of young women seeking a way to bepersonally and socially powerful.This is especially topical given that sexual images of women in mainstreamadvertising and popular culture have undergone a perceptible shift in empha-sis, increasingly depicting women as actively embracing, celebrating andenjoying sex-object status (Gill, 2008). Our discussion is situated in the contextof evidence of a rise in cosmetic surgery and suggestions that young womenincreasingly view glamour modelling and lap/pole dancing as attractive careeroptions, embedded in the discourse of empowerment. A socio-cultural climatewhere some young women perceive that a positive self-identity can be builton reclaiming the sexualized portrayals that modern feminism has sought tochallenge needs critical interrogation.Sexualization and ‘Jordan’ as a contemporary iconCommentary and analysis of the sexualization of popular culture includesdiscussion of the impact on girls and young women’s identity development(American Psychological Association, 2007; Coy, 2009a) and how exposureto sexualized material influences young people’s sexual values and behaviours(Brown et al., 2006; Coy, 2009a). Rosalind Gill (2007a: 151), usefullydescribes sexualization as ‘the extraordinary proliferation of discourses aboutsex and sexuality across all media forms … as well the increasingly frequenterotic presentation of girls’, women’s and (to a lesser extent) men’s bodies inpublic spaces’. Of key relevance to our arguments here are four definingdiscourses in postfeminist media culture that Gill identifies: notions thatwomen can use their bodies for profit as a means to power; the importanceof individual choice; makeovers as re-inventions of the self; a focus on bio-logical differences between men and women (Gill, 2007a). Marjut Jyrkinen(2005) notes that these values are increasingly standardized through theglobalization of Western culture, creating a context of normalization thatshe refers to as ‘McSexualization’. Glamour modelling is an integral part ofMcSexualization, found in such everyday sources as British national newspapers(‘Page 3 girls’), and appears to be fundamentally grounded in the idea thatwomen using their bodies for profit is empowering. The aspirations andaccounts of young women we draw on in this article also highlight how theyregard aesthetic self-improvement as integral to their identity, and how theyvenerate individual choice. At the same time, the expansion of publicationscarrying sexualized images of women, such as the launch of ‘lads’ mags’ in boththe US and UK (Coy and Horvath, forthcoming) has led to a high demand foryoung women willing to pose semi-naked.‘Jordan’ the glamour model began topless modelling for Page 3 ofThe Sunin 1996, aged 18 (Price, 2005) and is ‘primarily famous for the enormous sizeof her surgically enhanced breasts’ (Holmes, 2005: 13). She has extended herDownloaded fromics.sagepub.comby Anna Dom on October 14, 2012Coy & GarnerGGlamour modelling and the marketing of self-sexualization659public profile beyond glamour modelling, however, to reality TV, fly-on-the-wall documentaries and what might be termed ‘Brand Jordan’, trading onher celebrity status to sell novels, children’s books, hair and beauty electronics,bed linen and lingerie. She has been described in broadsheet media as a rolemodel for young people for her determination and dedication, even wherescepticism remains about the sexualized route she has chosen to achieve it(Midgley, 2007).Following Shapiro (1999: 1), we define iconicity as when imagery of aperson becomes so recognizable that it supplants ‘the actual form’. We use ithere to illustrate how the ‘Jordan’ identity, which she herself describes as aproduct, has developed into an iconic aspiration for young women. It is notKatie Price the woman that we critique or pathologize; our aim is to questionthe marketed brand of femininity that ‘Jordan’ represents, and the culturaland political landscape it inhabits, in order to interrogate how glamourmodelling has become a career aspiration for some young women. First welocate these aspirations in discourses of agency, objectification and empower-ment, and then sexualization and gendered respectability.Agents, objects and capitalizing on femininityIn 2007, actress Juliette Binoche described ‘modelling naked forPlayboy[as] equally an act of universal love as well as a feminist act of militancyto change the world’ (Gordon, 2008). While theorization of the sexualiza-tion of culture proliferates, debate continues over whether it representsand recreates a liberatory loosening of constraints or the mainstreamingof subordination for women (see Attwood, 2005). Ariel Levy questionswhether ‘raunch culture’ is feminism in action and goes on to ask: ‘How isresurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeav-oured to banish good for women? Why is labouring to look like PamelaAnderson empowering? And how is imitating a stripper or a porn star – awoman whose job is to imitate arousal in the first place – going to renderus sexually liberated?’ (2005: 3–4).The central concern of this article is to focus on how objectification is bothmarketed and experiencedasagency. In this way, it is possible to transcendthe binary of women who model as ‘victims of hegemonic gender definitionsor as the latter’s censurable promoters’ (Soley-Beltran, 2003: 311). RosalindGill (2007b) suggests that a way to achieve this is through ‘critical respect’that comprises thoughtful listening to women’s accounts while questioningcontexts. Theoretically, Lois McNay’s (2005) work provides a frameworkthat highlights the active processes of self-interpretation in the developmentof identity. Here agency is embedded in social relations of power while expe-rienced as under the ambit of self determination (McNay, 2005). FollowingMcNay and Gill, this article pays attention to women’s terms of referencewithin the context of sexualized popular culture.Downloaded fromics.sagepub.comby Anna Dom on October 14, 2012660I N T E R N AT I O N A LjournalofC U LT U R A Lstudies13(6)As success in glamour modelling relies on the size and shape of women’sbodies, particularly breasts, and narrowly defined levels of attractiveness, it isclear that women are only valued in the glamour and sex industry as sexualobjects. In the publications that feature their photographs, women are literallydefined in terms of decoration. Bartky (1990: 26) defines sexual objectificationas ‘when her sexual parts or sexual functions are separated out from the restof her personality and reduced to the status of mere instruments or elseregarded as if they were capable of representing her’. What we are interestedin exploring is how this has been reframed as sexualsubjectification(Gill,2003) that appears to be feminism and/or empowerment, predicated on thebasis that gender equality has been achieved. Women’s accounts of glamourmodelling point to the latter position, as Laura Lacole commented in theGlamour Girlsshow:I think it’s so funny that people still think that glamour modelling objectifieswomen. These days, you can do what you want. I think it’s more about girlpower. People say it’s just for the fellas but if anyone is winning I think it’sthe girls, they’re the ones in control. (quoted in Russell, 2008)Mears and Finlay (2005) suggest, with reference to mainstream ‘fashion’modelling, that women demonstrate that they are ‘more than paper dolls’(passive objects) as they require the ability to sell the self and build rela-tionships with agents and clients. Capitalizing on femininity as an indicationof contemporary female empowerment has similarly been cited with respectto women in prostitution (Sanders, 2005). However as Luce Irigaray (1985)and Bev Skeggs (1997) note, such exchange-use of femininity is tacticalrather than strategic; it is shaped by restrictions created by structural factors,legitimated only by masculinity and therefore unable to claim power of itsown. Jennifer Wesely’s (2002) research with women working as exoticdancers highlights how girls learn from a young age that sexualized femalebodies are valued and rewarded over other characteristics and achievements.While women talk about a sense of personal power, Wesely identifies whatis also a locus of our concern here: ‘these privileges, however, bear littleimpact on structural inequalities: a late pass, a discount. The women arenot afforded agency within the market; the small privileges they receiveserve to maintain the phallocentric culture’ (2002: 1196). Even where it isexperienced as not illusory but concrete and real, this sense of agency is alegitimate target for critique since it fails to challenge the material realitiesof continuing gender inequality.Corsianos (2003: 865) defines sexual agency as ‘the capacity to evaluateand make choices for oneself regarding self definitions as a sexual being andpersonal sexual performances regardless of the external dominant socialforces and social consequences’. This is useful to highlight the role of socialcontexts, but we suggest that there is a significant distinction between personalsexual performances and the public domain where glamour modelling isenacted. The sexual performance of glamour modelling is intensely public onDownloaded fromics.sagepub.comby Anna Dom on October 14, 2012
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