Baudrillad Chapter 8

The Consumer Society, Chapter 8 – Jean Baudrillard The Finest Consumer Object: The Body

Fetish (Baudrillard,129. Para 3) - Social conditioning to create attraction towards a person, place, or an object
Hedonistic (131, para 2)- a person whose life is devoted to the pursuit of pleasure and self-gratification.
Athleticism (132, para 3) - Characterized by or involving physical activity or exertion; active:
Somatisation (140, para 1) - dysfunctional symptoms tend to range from sensory or motor disability, hypersensitivity to pain.
Key Themes / Concepts: In Jean Baudrillard’s “The Consumer Society”, the body is the epitome of consumerism, referred to as “an object of salvation” (Baudrillard, 129. para 1). The body is summarized to be the consumer’s most valued possession, liberated from past Puritan influences and herein free. This is paradox of Baudrillard’s option brightly illustrates the extent that body is exploited, and how moral is suffocated through consumption. Extended hyperbole is apparent throughout the structure of this chapter for further empathies of the destructive force of materialistic society. Baudrillard despises advertising as a form that is used to sell the body by exploiting and moulding it to
fit into a specific niche. Advertising utilizes past ideologies and the need to restore oneself, but rather than salvation of the soul it illuminates importance of physical appearance (para 2). “Body as capital or fetish” (Baudrillard, 129. Para 3) defines the body as a means to an end. People in capitalist society must prostitute themselves out for the acquisition of wealth. At the same time, consumers are selling themselves out, and worshiping the body. Consumers manipulate themselves in an attempt to keep themselves young (para 3). This first section of chapter 8 summarizes the content that Baudrillard expedites throughout the chapter, the manipulation of the body in consumer society.
A magazine article in Elle highlights another key theme Baudrillard develops; defining oneself through materialism. People in consumer society wear clothes to be distinguished as someone, rather than being someone through their actions. Clothes in consumer society create a definition of oneself. Narcissistic behaviour is accustomed, and even expected from this obsession with appearance (130 & 131). People become “possessed, manipulated and consumed object(s)” (131, para 1). Value is determined through appearance. Functional beauty (132, para 2) is a term used by Baudrillard to describe “exchange value”. Social status is an example of functional beauty. People especially women can achieve higher status through appearance. Men and women both pursue materialistic foundations for themselves. “Beauty and eroticism” (132, para 2) function as a marking technique to sell desires as products. Women are supposed to be a seductive item with market value. Beauty then becomes a fake notion separate from natural appearance used for marketing. Fake is the marketed real. Marketers mix of fashion and erotic. The perfume advertisement portrayed in class is an example that depicts a naked model, to elicit the understanding that sex sells. The model’s sexuality becomes marketable and a profit making scheme. There is no significant connection between the items and her; she is herein separate from her sexuality. She is yet a sexless object denied of pleasure for sign use only. (134, para 1)
The “pleasure principle and productive forces...drive(s) us to buy” (134. para 3). Buying influence indicates the ways in which we attempt to connect with our bodies. Appearance orientated physical therapies are concerned with appearance. (para 3) Physical body is an idea that is given excess supremacy over soul. (136, para 2) Change in society impacts the body, librating society from forced repression. The destroyed inhibitors of Puritan society become the catalyst for extensive sexuality. Woman become highly sexualized (137. Para 1) Also people of colour are portrayed with overt sexuality as their power, a reversal of roles. Baudrillard argues that this is exploitation rather than freedom. “Social servitude” is now elicited in a new form. Young are given a particular role to contain them in society just as they were previously, yet young are now presumed to be rebellious (138. Para 1)” Exploitation of the body appears to be a form of repression. Baudrillard argues that women’s rights, such as voting are just a smoke screen hiding repression which occurs in more subtitle ways through sexualisation. (138, para 2) The status’ of women in society is denied because they are shown as highly sexualized and with wayward intents. Women are pressured to live up to a certain speculation and this leads to problems such as weight deprivation. The obsession with a need for the perfect body creates a demand in the medical field to manipulate appearances (139, para 1).
Another topic that Buadrillard discusses is his apparent disgust with the craze of beauty as restricted to one image. “Obsession with Slimness” and the ‘Figure’ (140, para 2) empathises the perception of beauty as slenderness through advertising and signs. Society neglects the idea that beauty can be in all shapes and forms, including fat. He describes the impact this has on young girls, and how dieting is commonly found in young girls, even though they have no use for highly sexualized bodies (142. Para 2).
Sexualized images and the impact of consumerism on individuals are reoccurring themes mentioned countless times throughout this chapter for extensive empathises.
Objects are given a sexual fantasy perception that is distinctly apart from their actual reality. (146, para 3) Baudrillard disagrees that sexualized objects feed into your unconscious he rather presumes this is an impact of your social surroundings. This is a difficult argument to prove the validity of because psychology has also proved that these are desires that we naturally posses. These “fantasies in advertising” to Baudrillard are myths that are “atmospheric” (147, para 4), our desires occur because of our psychoanalytic
culture.
The last segment of this chapter explores how sexuality is marketed towards children. The “Sexed Doll” may be compared to Barbie’s distinct sexualized appearance, and this is an intentional embrace of sex from children who don’t understand it. Also develops from the over stimulation and introduced to adult fantasies at way to young of an age. (149, para 2) Children are introduced to an artificial sexual reality at a premature age. Sex has become a toy marketed to children unrealistically, and separated through signs.

Critique of Baudrillard Baudrillard makes a profoundly unsustainable argument that rejects women’s liberty in chapter 8. “(Women’s) real liberation is successfully averted... by confusing women and (their) sexual liberation, each is neutralized by the other.” (138, para 1) This brave statement ignores any influence of advertising on males in society, and simply presumes male dominance. It dissolves women of the liberty that she possesses to make decisions. This suggests that women, do not have the capacity to separate themselves from consumerism, and are held down by the enjoyment of looking good. Baudrillard appears to be making a harsh criticism of women in society without giving any thought to the impact that advertising has on men. Arguably men buy their image and persona through material acquisition to the same degree as woman. Baudrillard makes a random stab at women in society then quickly bandages it up with a statement pertaining to the fact that women have come so far from oppression. It appears he is discriminatory toward woman in this account and assumes that they are the only ones who buy things to change their image. It appears that Baudrillard is a misanthrope and condemns consumer society in every possible manner, as well as women. I would agree that consumer society is largely influential in its persuasiveness, but I don’t think this should be accepted as an opportunity for Baudrillard to repress women.

Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. (2008) The Consumer Society. 127-150