Average looking really pretty model people: New ways of thinking about the fashion model for new times
(2005) Average looking really pretty model people: New ways of thinking about the fashion model for new times. In Julian, Roberta and Rottier, Reannan and White, Rob, Eds. Proceedings Community, Place, Change, The Annual Conference of The Australian Sociological Association, Hobart, Australia.
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Abstract
This paper will explore how young people appear to be employing more sophisticated ways of thinking about popular media icons that transcend more dichotomous understandings reflected in the literature. It appears that typically popular media icons are conceptualised in the literature in terms of a dichotomy: they influence young people in either negative or positive ways, never both. Young peoples’ ways of thinking about these icons, however, appear to transcend these binaries, and even hold such binaries together in paradoxical ways. As a ‘for instance’ of these new understandings, the paper draws on recent research conducted by the author about the fashion model. The paper examines more specifically how young girls conceptualise the fashion model body in ways that hold together the typically dichotomous ways of thinking about fashion model reflected in the literature. Whereas the literature sets up a discursive binary about the model body as either ‘fatal’ or ‘fun’, young girls draw on more erudite ways of thinking about the model body as both fatal and fun. In light of this, the paper highlights the need to move to more ironic theoretical tools in order to better understand young peoples’ engagement with popular cultural icons in ‘new times’.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Keywords: | young people, young girl, thinking, popular media, icon, fashion model, negative, positive, discursive binary, irony, new times, conceptualise, engagement |
| Subjects: | 400000 Journalism, Librarianship and Curatorial Studies > 400100 Journalism, Communication and Media > 400104 Communication and Media Studies 420000 Language and Culture > 420300 Cultural Studies > 420303 Culture, Gender, Sexuality 420000 Language and Culture > 420300 Cultural Studies 370000 Studies in Human Society > 379900 Other Studies in Human Society > 379901 Gender Specific Studies 370000 Studies in Human Society > 370100 Sociology |
| ID Code: | 11246 |
| Deposited By: | Dwyer, Angela E |
| Deposited On: | 18 December 2007 |
| Alternative Locations: | http://www.tasa.org.au/, http://www.tasa.org.au/conference/2005/ |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2005 (please consult author) |
| Copyright Statement: | Copyright remains with the authors |
| Additional Information: | For more information, please refer to the publisher's website (see hypertext link) or contact the author |