Abstract
Abstract
The article addresses how popular imageries of ideal body types and their circulation inspires the construction of similar body ideals to be achieved through body work, body care and body control. While demonstrating a composite relationship between the ‘image’ and the ‘body’, it renders the interdependency and inseparability of these two entities, capturing the dual process of consuming images of the ideal body and transforming body into images for consumption.
The article also advances a theoretical model of image–body unification in contemporary India. Citing a wide range of visual representations of the body/image, the article illustrates how the imageries of the ideal body type are often negotiated through body work, and how the worked-out body is then converted to similar body-image for circulation, thereby creating replicas of predominant ideal types and inspiring the production of bodies and images that are identical to that type.
The article situates such practices of image production, circulation and emulation within the larger context of greater levels of tolerance, acceptance and dissemination of the eroticised body. It is argued that the acceptance of the eroticised body as lifestyle choice is an integral part of a larger global visual trend. The erosion of the stigma against representation of the body as a legitimate site of pleasure determines our temporal identities by inviting us to participate in the articulation of the desiring self through image-conscious bodies and through images that make the body more desirable.
Keywords
Introduction
Substantiated through various media images of ideal body 1
Ideal body type refers to the slim, slender and toned body devoid of excess flesh. Certainly, it is not a proposed ideal, nevertheless an established ideal that deserves a critique. Commenting upon slenderness as a distinctive and aesthetic sign, Baudrillard (1998, 141), stated: It can only be slim and slender, according to its current definition as a combinatorial logic of signs, governed by the same algebraic economy as the functionality of objects or the elegance of a diagram.
Second, it explores the subject’s active willingness to be gazed-at by sharing the images of the worked-out bodies to enhance their visual profile. Instigated by the predominance of visualness, body often transforms into a material—waiting to be visually shared, consumed and (re)produced. Visual representation and reproduction of the self-displaying body gains the utmost importance in an era where technology supports and promotes instant sharing, curating, viewing and duplicating with great ease. It is argued that the body-project is incomplete if it is not accompanied by self-managed broadcasting techniques that allow the body-image to be peer-reviewed and circulated as commodities for assessment by the significant or the anonymous others, thus creating replicas of the predominant body type, and producing bodies and images that are identical to that type.
Third, through exploration of select media content, it argues a case for greater levels of tolerance and acceptance for the body-image with higher degrees of sexual explicitness, thus insinuating us to participate in the exhibition and circulation of self-images. It is articulated that reception of eroticised content in and across media platforms is increasingly celebrity-led, which has motivated greater assertion of the desiring self through dissemination of image conscious bodies or through images that make the body more desirable. This section uses a wide range of visual material from print media over the last two decades to substantiate the case of greater levels of mass tolerance for sexual explicitness. To make an argument that such expressions of the desire is all-pervasive and can be observed across various formats of representations, ample examples are cited from contemporary cinema, lyrics, music, web-exclusive contents to establish erosion of stigma against representation of the body as a legitimate site of pleasure.
In the context of (a) greater influence of images of the ideal body type; (b) easier technological means of publicising the body that has been worked upon; (c) attained legitimacy of eroticised content in mainstream media, the article advances the theoretical model of image–body inseparability. It is argued that the image of the body influenced by the predominant type and the body of images attained through body-work and which are willingly shared through digital platforms for further consumption are organically and conceptually merged with each other. It is argued that the images of ideal body types are intertwined with the idea of worked-out bodies that are ready to be converted into ‘images’ for consumption, and which serve as ideals for those who aspire towards or reaffirm to such predominant types. Selected images and the story behind the making of these images depict the possibility of self-reconfiguration realised through body-projects that reflect narratives of ‘becoming’ in the post-liberalised Indian context, particularly in the metropolitan cities.
The theoretical model formulated here in order to grapple with the interconnections between ‘image’ and ‘body’ logically tends to propose a conceptual cohesion between these two apparently separate entities. The arguments laid in this article develop a rationale in favour of an organic merger of ‘images that inspire bodies’ (images of bodies) and ‘bodies that produce identical images’ (bodies of images) through the act of ‘working with/on one’s body’. This is an attempt to analyse the inseparability of images of ideal types of bodies that inspire an individual to work with one’s body, and images that the body produces for circulation once it has met certain parameters that are congruent to that ideal type.
The model proposes a scenario wherein the physical body is consuming images of ideal body types to modify the body accordingly and to give it a similar look. Simultaneously, the body also ejaculates images similar to that ideal type through self-publication of the worked-out body to be consumed as images of ideal types.
The task laid out here is to analyze the construction and social dissemination of body-ideals and advance a theoretical model of image-body unification in contemporary urban India amongst the classes who have the affordability to indulge in the consumerist tendencies involving the body.
The Idea of ‘Extra as Excess’: Making and Manipulating the Ideal Body-Image
Of all the ways people think of themselves, none is so central as the image of their own bodies. body-image is the way people perceive themselves.
—Fallon (1990: 80)
There is no body type, which is recognised as an ideal universally, across cultures and over centuries. In fact, what is considered an ideal body type, and, hence appreciated, is not merely culture-specific but also changes radically over time. 2
For a detailed evolution of changes in ideal body type in the West, see Fallon (1990) and Gordon (1990). Grogan (2008: 15) particularly noted the radical changes in bust–waist–hip measurements of the winners of Miss American Contest over the decades in the twentieth century.
As opposed to the contemporary West with its limited range of ideal body types, in India, until recent times, there was no social prejudice against body types that were heavier, broader and larger than the ideal type that is established in the recent past. Lines from Kalidasa’s Meghaduta clearly held ‘extra’ weight in the highest regard while describing the beauty of a woman: ‘A slow walker on account of her heavy hips and bent a little forward due to the weight of her breasts.’ Similar sensibilities could be observed in the depiction of women in calendar art and popular paintings. 3
See Uberoi (2006: 58-61) for ‘iconicaization’ of women in Indian calender art.
The slim/slender/muscular body ideals as the one and only acceptable ideal for the urban-consumer is one of the many neoliberal imports that came along with a host of ways and means of reducing the extra pound in the post-liberalisation phase. Such ideals are global models offering standardised types for emulation, emancipation and entanglement. This body-idealising campaign, sustained since the early 1990s, had twin strategies of (a) negative stereotyping of the overweight/oversized and (b) positive correlations drawn between consumption of the ideal body type and enhanced self-esteem, self-control and sex appeal. On the one hand, achieving the predominant ideal was sold as a formula of success, and simultaneously on the other, not choosing to conform to that ideal, or an inability to do so, was rendered as a matter of social embarrassment worthy of being ridiculed or to be prejudiced against.
The imposing organising principles of body control came along with a range of products and services that liberalisation had in store in order to identify, problematise and classify flesh as loose, extra or excess. The body was evaluated on the based on weight, size, shape, tone and complexion. Body was connected to the idea of sex appeal. The project was achieved through repeated induction of a sense of inadequacy with ones body that created prolonged sense of displeasure due to the accentuated difference between the ‘actual’ and ‘ideal’ 4
Illustrating the increasing difference between the actual and ideal, Gimlin (2002: 5) noted, In 1954, Miss America was 5.8 feet and weighed 132 pounds. Today, the average Miss America contestant stands 5.8 feet tall and weighs just 117 pounds. Only twenty seven years ago, the typical fashion model weighed 8 percent less than the average American woman. In 1990, that difference had grown to 23 percent. According to one source, the ideal female model today stands between 5.8 feet and 6 feet tall and weighs 125 pounds, whereas the average American woman stands 5.4 feet tall and weighs 140 pounds.
Once the media messages successfully established the idea of extra or posed it as a problem or convinced the liberalised consumer to get rid of the extra, it was only a matter of time before the market could start selling a wide range of body-modifying methods 5
Such methods of modification also fragmentalise the body into specific cluster of parts or zones, which calls for care and attention focused to the particular regions of the body. For example, VLCC’s permanent laser hair reduction campaign with a tag line ‘Flaunt your body all year long’ not only presumes the act of displaying to be the sole purpose for modification but also advertises a very clear distinction between ‘small parts’ and ‘large parts’. Small parts include: upper lip, side lock, chin, cheeks, neck, beard line, underarms, cleavage, midriff, ears, hands, fingers and feet. Large parts include arms, chest, legs, back (full), back and shoulder, chest and abdomen, full face. Such zoning of the body distorts the way body is often perceived as a whole and in turn modifies the notion of physical ‘modifications’ for the purpose of pride of display.
This idea of considering ‘fat’ as excessive matter out of place is quite similar to our treatment of dirt as impure matter that requires cleansing. Just like dirt, an unnecessary residual element to be disposed, the fate of fat follows similar trajectory. Douglas (1966) argued that the notion of dirt is a derivative of a scheme of ordering that classifies something as dirty in reference to its current location or in relation to other things: Dirt is never a unique, isolated event. Where there is dirt there is system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements. It is a relative idea. Shoes are not dirty in themselves, but it is dirty to place them on the dining-table; food is not dirty in itself, but it is dirty to leave cooking utensils in the bedroom …. (Douglas 1966: 37).
Such concerns are repeatedly reflected in representation of the slender body as healthy, beautiful and successful in a wide range of visuals and popular media imagery in contemporary India. Today’s heroes are those who successfully invest and achieve success in building beautiful bodies, which then can be used for endorsing products that resonate similar ethos or provokes others to take part in the fitness, dieting and disciplining regimes. Also, unless tuned according to set standards of perfection, the body is not worthy of being exhibited, which calls for ‘shaping up before showing off’ (Figure 1). A call for shaping up before showing off is obviously complementary to the idea of showing off that one is in shape. It also suggests relations between shaping the body and shaping one’s life. Usage of the fair 7
As opposed to the ideals of fairness, rampant in fairness cream ads and complexion of mannequins, the idea of brown as an ideal skin colour to be achieved through tanning is a further validation of variations in the ideal types across cultural boundaries. The brown often attained through tanning on the beach, leisure and travel by Western tourists, also signifies access to certain privilege and lifestyle. I am thankful to Kiran Bbushi for raising this point.
The ideal type of ‘slim’ as a desirable does not merely remain confined to the human body but also gets reflected in the aesthetics behind product design and brand proposition (see Figures 2 and 3). Sold out to the concept of ‘slimming’, bodies and products outsmart each other by claiming to be slimmer than the other.
Operating under in a system of the ‘tyranny of slenderness’ (Chernin 1983), the contemporary popular media rampantly creates an illusion of desirability with thinness. Most often, ‘ideals’ are either too distant or impossible to achieve and it is difficult to measure up, as the reference images are hardly real. 8
In fact, at times, in the digital era, the ideal may well be a mirage, which is never attainable as the reference images of ideal types are often creations of post-production tools that make the skin spotless and flawless. The shapes and tonalities are often digitally manipulated works of photoshopped enhancements with tools such as ‘liquify filter’ or ‘magic wand’ or combination of many more hyperreal mediations, thus making the ‘ideal’ all the more illusionary.
… becomes more elusive as it becomes more pressing. The attainment of an acceptable body is difficult for those who do not come by it ‘naturally’ …. Between the media images of self-containment and self-mastery and the reality of constant, everyday stress and anxiety about one’s appearance lies the chasm that produces bodies habituated to self-monitoring and self-normalization.
The body language of the popular lifestyle magazines in India in the last two decades have also repeatedly addressed, and not yet exhausted, the theme of drawing relations between the purchase of beauty products and consequential increase in one’s sex appeal through such consumption. This emphasis on body maintenance 9
Featherstone (1991: 182) also equates the term ‘body maintenance’ with the ‘machine metaphor for the body’, which requires regular servicing and care for maximum efficiency, just like any other consumer good.
Moderated external restraints imposed through structures of social life have traditionally been the hallmark of the civilising mission as explored by Elias (1994). However, by shifting it from outside the self and by locating it within the body through practices of self-management, it serves the purpose of greater conformity. This body building or body maintaining reflects a new form of social control—‘self-surveillance’—which becomes the most significant technology of disciplinary power (Foucault 1988; Wolf 1990). There has been a transformation of surveillance into an agency of private scrutiny by one’s own means. As Bauman (1995: 114) observes, this process is not forceful but is rather volunteered:
There is an evident selective affinity between the privatisation of the uncertainty-handling function and the market catering for private consumption. Once the fear of uncertainty has been reforged into the fear of personal self-forming ineptitude, the offer of the consumer market is irresistible; it needs no coercion and no indoctrination to be taken up; it will be freely chosen.
There is a shift from the subject as a disobeying machine based on a model of repressed desire to the subject as a desiring machine based on a model of expressive desire. Instead of imposing norms, market offers a range of options to choose preferred ‘ideal types’ and provides necessary tools and ingredients needed to achieve these targets. These are targets that keep changing in response to new set of implanted inadequacies. What remains is the constant feeling that there is something wrong with the body that deserves attention. That sense of inadequacy requires ‘self-policing’ aided by consumption that replaces external policing on matters of self-managing the body-project with its promise of ‘better life’.
Thus, the body, within consumer culture, is a vehicle of pleasure: it has to be both desirable and desiring. It has to appropriate the idealised images of youth, health, fitness and beauty through body work, and display the results. Individuals now have to decode the appearance of others and take pains to manage the impressions they might give off while moving through the world of strangers, which requires constant self-consciousness and self-scrutiny, thus opening up spaces for the ‘performing self’ in front of the anonymous or the significant ‘other’ who matters. One driving factor for the desire to gaze and desire to be gazed at is ‘scopophilia’ in ‘image culture’ (Jameson 1998). Attractiveness and beauty must be publicly performed to define and demonstrate self-worth and social worth. We are residents of a society where we are being constantly gazed at and are seduced to participate in gazing too.
I Am Seen, Therefore I Am: Sharing and Circulating the Body–Image
… the fear of disclosure has been stifled by the joy of being noticed.
—Bauman and Lyon (2013: 23)
Display is essential. The body that has gone through the grind of care, control and restrain has to be peer-reviewed. Displaying the worked-out or the worked-upon body is a logical outcome of the process of working with the body to emulate the ideal type. Displaying is (a) an act of reaffirming the ideal type; (b) a proof of living (up to) the ideal type; and (c) creating replicas for further consumption and future emulation. And it is at this stage that the image-consuming body becomes a visual commodity itself, to be consumed by others, and distributed by the image-conscious body, but, rarely with any exclusive rights reserved.
Compulsive and enhanced visibility in social media is a precondition for gathering social recognition and assessing self-worth. Perpetual self-advertisement is not merely essential for the restless self to acquire more ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ to feel valid, but visibility is a social currency as invisibility is equivalent to obsoleteness.
Production, storage and reproduction of visual content are much easier than ever before. The ‘copy’ is no longer an inferior version of the ‘original’ as the digital collapses the distinction between the two. 10
The ethos of sharing that is accentuated by the ease of rapid reproduction is not exactly allegorical to the cultural story of piracy. Sharing is dominated by the announcement of the choices made by the self as opposed to consumption of something more impersonal through various channels of piracy. However, the ease of circulation is common to both. For a detailed analysis of how low-cost digital production makes the pirated available to the masses and its significance in India, see Sundaram (2009, 2013).
However, it would be erroneous to presume that the act of publicising the private is a generic or unselective process. On the contrary, it is a judiciously chosen scrupulous process, which demands accurate selection of the right images and messages that one is comfortable sharing with the public. While the degrees and levels of comfort may vary, it is nevertheless an individual's decision to make certain aspects of the private public through circulation. However, such sharing habits, in all likelihood reveal glimpses from one's ‘backstage’ (referring to Goffman's usage of the term [1959])—a restricted space to which the audience did not have much of an access earlier. The performer has got a wider audience now and is encouraged to release more and more backstage moments.
Ease of sharing is further exemplified by the availability of ‘share’ and ‘follow’ buttons that frees the consumer from the added task of manually copying a link or attaching a file before sharing.
The impact of brands such as Google, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc., have been so prolific that they are inhesitantly used as verbs (googling, tweeting, whatsapping).
New memory now resides within the enormous gigabytes of digital storage spaces that archives all valuable moments—textual, visual and musical. We either remember what we happen to store in our smart devices or we store what we would like to remember or revisit. These stored memories, now, travel thousands of kilometres in a split second. While the possibility of consumption has become more and more public, it is increasingly negotiated through a private apparatus.
The phenomenon of investing in social relationships by considering oneself as a commodity to be constantly self-promoted is aptly formulated by Bauman and Lyon (2013: 33):
Members of consumer society are themselves consumer commodities, and it is the quality of being a consumer commodity that makes them bona fide members of that society. Becoming and remaining a saleable commodity is the most potent motive of consumer concerns.
Bauman formulates it further and equates this compelling tendency to publicise the private in order to overcome fears of feeling abandoned, ignored or excluded. In an analysis in Liquid Surveillance, Bauman and Lyon (2013: 23) proclaims how social media has successfully overturned the old panoptic nightmare by converting the fear of disclosure into the pleasure of being noticed. Likewise, what was earlier achieved through imposing, enforcement or policing, can now be achieved through temptation and arousal, thus replacing the costly panoptical model with voluntary self-servitude with actors carrying their ‘personal panopticons on their own bodies’ (Bauman & Lyon 2013: 23). Creation of a new social order through such self-disciplining measures possible through active co-operation of the surveilled makes surveillance more private, predictable and effective. This is where the self-managed body-project gets its due accompaniment in the form of self-managed broadcasting techniques.
When one is participating in such a process, one has willingly agreed to take part and given consent to the loss of privacy and allowed others to watch us, with or without being conscious of the fact that visibility is a trap, and those who are watching (friends or trackers or hackers) are invisible. The enigma of being visible certainly scores over and above the loss of privacy as reflected in the following response by a gym instructor:
Why should I be concerned with who is looking at me when what I am doing is to invite onlookers. It doesn’t bother me if online marketers track my purchasing pattern to prompt advertisement accordingly. I do not care if Google knows or remembers more about my preferences than I do. What I know is that I am a small dot in front of a giant algorithm. What matters the most is visibility that would generate interest and bring more clients and inspire them to have bodies that I can help them make.
The response so well resonates with the digital sentiment of ‘I share therefore I get to be seen’ and ‘I am seen therefore I am’, making the process of circulation of the images absolutely inseparable from the intent of its production. It is the ‘seen-body’, the ‘peer-reviewed body’ and the ‘followed-body’ served out as a commodity for social judgement that enhances the social profile of the worked-out self.
While this obsessive, excessive and expressive range of visual expression ‘of the self, by the self for the other’ could be liberating for the participants, who voluntarily engage with the process of self-publishing, the trend could also be analysed as a new form of disciplining and routinising which helps reproduce and replicate homogenous models and myths of beauty or ideal types of bodies.
(Ob)scene Onscreen: Acceptability and Legitimacy of the Body-Image
14
In a recent interview given to Open magazine, superstar Shah Rukh Khan summed-up the centrality of ‘image’ and consumption of the self by the image of the self by stating: ‘I am an image. Shah Rukh Khan is an image … and I’m just an employee of that image.’ See http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/shah-rukh-khan-i-give-you-the-right-not-to-judge-people#page1 (Last accessed on 26 June 2016).
In a recent interview given to Open magazine, superstar Shah Rukh Khan summed-up the centrality of ‘image’ and consumption of the self by the image of the self by stating: ‘I am an image. Shah Rukh Khan is an image … and I’m just an employee of that image.’ See http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/art-culture/shah-rukh-khan-i-give-you-the-right-not-to-judge-people#page1 (Last accessed on 26 June 2016).
Sexuality is the prime site of consumerist action, where one’s body (perceived to be sexual) is an ‘affordable’ and accessible tool of consumerist achievement.
—Srivastava (2007: 311)
In the last two decades, the obscene on screen has gained acceptability and legitimacy. Touchscreen mediated ease of circulation is well complimented by proliferation of what was earlier considered ‘obscene’, but now available and acceptable onscreen and no more confined to footpaths. Access to such contents are easier, cheaper and much faster that what it used to be even a decade ago. Content with sexual component is now served as a lifestyle choice or as a legitimate recreational choice—open to browsing and exploration. The eroticised body is presented with an aesthetic gloss to make it tasteful. This realistic representation of the desirable body is quite contrary to Srivastava’s subject of analysis in Pedestrian Desires: Footpath Pornography and the Aesthetic of Fluid Spaces (2007: 167–202). Interpreting circulation and consumption of the erotic content for the masses and elaborating the relationship between poor production quality and the audience, Srivastava (2007: 182) argued,
The lack of realism, heightened by poor quality, might be understood as an expression of the distance between the intended audience and the object of desire.
Easier and wider access in the last few years has made the ‘poor quality-ness’ quite an abandoned category for the young and urban middle classes in metropolitan cities with smartphone in their pockets that provide access to unlimited audio–visual content. And it is through this attention-seeking digital network, through which we are increasingly emoting, entertaining, communicating, transacting, storing and remembering as we swipe, tap, drag and zoom. There has been a radical transformation of the visual representational strategies, transmitting several items of public visual culture from the footpath to websites and leading to a total rejection of most items with inferior production quality. As we zoom-in, the ‘distance’ has now transformed into ‘proximity’, which is intimate, impulsive and unconstrained; and anonymity transformed into familiarity—as it is often celebrity-led. The guilt of consumption or the guilt of being seen while consuming has been replaced by assured privacy of consumption.
The rapid transition is not merely confined to spatial and aesthetics dimensions of representation but it also extends to incorporate greater levels of mass tolerance for sexual explicitness. Pushing the border of acceptability, the mainstream media with high production values constantly borrows icons, idioms and forms of expression previously perceived as highly erotic and hence unacceptable (such as overt sexual iconography and codes, for example, closed eyes, open lips, spread legs, arms crossed over bare breasts, expressions of ecstasy or suggestions of orgasm).
The celebration of ‘body’ as a legitimate site of pleasure that consciously eroticise its visual representation manifests itself unapologetically in an increasingly unabashed manner. For instance, the imagery of foreplay in the Stanza ad (Figure 4) or the male stripper in the Van Heusen ad (Figure 5), where John Abraham is wearing a low denim enacting the role of a male pole dancer demanding to ‘turn it on’. The sexual element is repeatedly resonated in most of the high-end apparel accessory brands such as Armani, Chanel, Dior, D&G, Gucci, Mango, Spencer, Versace and others who pose their female models often in a state of ecstasy and orgasm.
Language is playing a crucial role in this seduction process. A denim brand communicated the notion of 50 per cent discount (half the rate) with a topless model, half naked (Figure 6). Similarly, a lingerie brand equated the notion of dropping prices through the act of stripping. The tagline read—‘We have stripped. Now what are you waiting for?’ (Figure 7).
The same lingerie brand promoted the opening of a retail outlet with the visuals of unhooking a bra. The tagline read: ‘Now Open’ (Figure 8).
In another advertisement, we witnessed explicitly suggestive tagline: ‘Minimum Coverage, Maximum Exposure’ (Figure 9) to advertise strappy, lowwaist, low-coverage undergarments clearly targeted to sexualise the body. The choice of words and imagery blatantly eroticise the product and the body.
There is no dearth of content that is aimed at sexually stimulating the audience. Articles, advices and features on relationships, sex, body care, celebrity lifestyle and photo shoots put ample emphasis on the visual aspects of sexualising the body to earn maximum benefit out of it. Titillating content in media is also increasingly led by celebrities. The presence of celebrities as opposed to unknown and anonymous faces makes the boundaries between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’; ‘prude’ and ‘sexy’ all the more ambiguous. It also adds more weightage and credibility to the act of provocation and paves way for its acceptance. The images of/for seduction has now got a face. The sexed-up appearance has lost its negative connotations precisely because it is often celebrity-lead. For example, Mandira Bedi stripped to make the reader happy after India’s disastrous cricket World Cup campaign in 2007. The Maxim 15
Maxim India undoubtedly has played a significant role before the 3G-boom in pushing the boundaries of acceptability of explicit in mainstream media. Loaded with smutty one-liners, it adopted an interactive approach with the models on centre-spreads. In one of the editions, it published a known actress who said, ‘I fell tied up’, to which the editorial comment was, ‘After this shot we pulled her strings’. On another occasion another known model gave an interview stating ‘I am like Dominos Pizza, if I don’t come in 30 minutes, the next one is free’. Such overt punning was quite different from overused phrases such as ‘discover your man’s M-zone’, ‘office romance rules’, ‘how to stroke ego’, ‘what to say after sex’, ‘the allure of a truly taken man’, ‘tricks to get your way’ in magazines such as Cosmopolitan or Elle.
Mallika Sherawat seduced us to flip through the remaining pages of her strip-tease act (Figure 11). The provocative text read: ‘Maximum Mallika … Minimum clothes! Now stop wasting time and flip right through’.
A movie teaser of a mainstream Hindi cinema titled XXX (compilation of short films) produced by Ekta Kapoor showed all its 10 directors to be located where the pin on the Google locator suggests (in Figure 12). Usage of the term ‘triple-X’ is no more reserved to convey something pornographic. Released out of the closet, the term ‘triple-X’ finds expression in mainstream full-page ads in Indian dailies conveying the act of stripping (Figure 13).
Rolex watch meets Calvin Klein lingerie in BDSM style (Figure 14).
The expression of the sexual desire is all-pervasive and can be observed across formats of representations. In cinema, advertisements, lyrics and music videos, there has been an explosion of imageries and texts with explicit or implicit sexual content off late. Popular mainstream releases with impressive star cast in movies such as Delhi Belly, Omkara, Gangs of Wasseypur, Ishqiya and many others have stretched the acceptable limits of usage of curse words in Hindi cinema. The Masti and Kya Kool Hai Hum series have survived on constant usage of overtly sexist puns.
An elaborate playlist of excessively popular songs in the last five years have a lot in common as far as their frank assertion of the sexual expression is concerned. The seductress (the ‘item’ of/for consumption), who could be the female protagonist as well—excessively reveals and exposes the consumable body with unabashed determination. Such is the intensity of the sexual content that it is stated in the title or in the first line of the lyric itself: ‘daddy mummy hai nahi ghar pe, piche ke kamre me ghuske kuch to karenge … mil zara’ (young woman demanding a sexual encounter hiding from parental supervision. In the following lines, she also expresses the desire to spice it up with dirty talks and proposes screening of sexually stimulating scenes from Hollywood movies as a foreplay exercise); ‘jhind wali baby nu … pallu sarkake sarkar gira dungi’ (bring down the ruling party by distracting them sexually), ‘G pe Danda … it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of fun’ (sticking in the asshole); ‘aj rath ka scene banale … apni daddy to sulake, mummy ko patake … aa jayungi milne dress miniwali pahenke’, (woman desperately seeking to hook up in a disco, successfully bypassing parental control and promising to show up in a miniskirt); ‘My name is Sheila … Sheila ki jawani … mei toh khud ko gale lagau, kisi aur ki mujhko jarurat kya, mei toh khud se pyar jatayu … I am too sexy for you, mei tere hath na ani’ (assertion of a self-reliant, self-absorbed, self-indulgent female who does not care for male participation); ‘munni badnam huyi darling tere liye’ (proudly announcing the loss of reputation due to a sexual allegiance); ‘zaba pe laga, laga re namak ishq ka’ (suggested reference of blow job followed by male ejaculation inside her mouth); ‘bidi jalai le jigar se piya, jigar ma bari aag hai’ (sexual potency that is capable of literal ignitions); ‘angrayiya leti hu mein jab zor zor se, ooh aah ki awaz ati hai har or se … hoshwale bhi madhosh ho jaye’, (men loosing their senses and uttering expressions of orgasm when they catch her stretching hard); ‘Mit jaye gham, maroge to jiyoge, dum maro dum’ (smoke-up to de-stress); ‘aj akh sekh raha hai, kal hath sekh-e ga, aaj mere liye chair khich raha hai, kal meri skirt khiche ga … uche se uche banda potty pe baithe nanga, phir kahe ki society, kahe ka pakhanda’ (hinting at double standards by references to men who are capable of performing both the acts of pulling a chair for a woman and pulling her skirts;); ‘I am hunter, she want to see my gun … she beg me see it, she beg me to show it, but when I reveal it she want to run and hide’. Such vivid affirmation of desire and pleasure in the domain of popular culture marks a drastic shift from covertly suggestive gestures or usage of visual metaphors to suggest a sexual possibility (such as, closing the doors, switching the lights, clinching fingers in Indian cinema before the 1990s) 16
See Prasad (1998), particularly the chapter titled ‘Guardians of View: The Prohibition of the Private’ for a detailed analyses of the cinematic techniques that kept perfunctory kisses suggestive.
Some of the chartbusters by Honey Singh, particularly the ‘Choot: Vol 1’ 17
The video had more than 1,500,000 views on YouTube—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFe2B70B7Q (Last accessed on 10 September 2016).
It is needless to say such sexually provocating content in mainstream media has not generated any raging controversies, which either reflects the level of tolerance and an appetite for sexual content in general. It is noteworthy that the Kamastura ad, the making of which has been meticulously documented by Mazzarella (2003), that positioned condom usage as an aphrodisiac, sex as pleasurable, linked sexual act with the consumerist desire, connected a commodity related to sex with Indian ethos cutting across language barriers, challenged the notions of social decency without crossing the lines, not only raised eyebrows but also called for ban in the 1990s. 18
It is also interesting to note that after a couple of decades, the same brand continues to communicate in a way more aggressive sexual tone with an overdose of sexual punning that is completely devoid of any appeal to an Indian ethos, and the content does not lead to any controversy. For example, the idea of ‘ribbed condoms’ is communicated through the following tagline: ‘The art critic praised the artist for his use of lines. He promised her more private viewings. Condoms that ensure ‘climax control’ were pitched as: ‘The doctor came late. The nurse was glad’. Similarly, the persuasive mechanism to pitch ‘contoured condoms’ was conceived in the following: ‘The geography professor gave private tuitions on different contours. The biology teacher could not stop thanking him.’
The frank admission of the sexual self and revealing opinions on matters related to one’s body or sexual habits transgress from fiction to facts through candid on-the-street discussions conducted by ‘So Effin Cray’, on YouTube. Young adults are interviewed on a wide range of themes bordering on sexuality and perception of the body: ‘How girls masturbate? Girls reveal all’, ‘Indian girls openly talk about boobs’, ‘Mumbai on happy ending massage for girls’, ‘Mumbai girls on kissing guys with beard’, ‘Mumbai on faking it’, ‘Indian girls on having sex for the first time’, ‘Indian girls on wearing bikini in India’, ‘Do girls get horny during rain’, ‘Do girls like being spanked’, ‘Girls react to real sex toys’, ‘What turns on Indian girls’, ‘Indian girl on sexting’, ‘Indian girls reveal their favourite position’, ‘Mumbai girls on waxing weird body parts’, etc. These short conversational videos (5–15 minutes) have recorded a massive following in the recent past. Some of them have viewership of over three million. This remarkable trend that shows faces (that is not greyed out or pixelated) reveals a generation no more apologetic about normative sexual choices and are willing to discuss their private pleasure preferences in public.
These mark the beginning of circulation of sexuality as a lived experience being narrated in first person in front of the camera to be consumed as opposed to fictional content created to arouse the audience. Such forms of unabashed and performative voyeurism reduces the burden of imagination, as the actors are now glad to share a pie of their private life relieving the consumer from the hardship of peeping in. The fear of exposure has been truly replaced by the pleasure of being seen.
The impact of this eroticised content negotiated through strategies of self-management leads to a condition that can be possibly explained as ‘democratisation of desire’ or ‘sexualisation of mass culture’ (Attwood 2009; McNair 2002). As the image-makers become increasingly liberal with exposure, the denims dropped lower and lower (see Figure 15), the audience was tempted to perform the role play.
The liberalisation of the sexual codes keep auditioning and browsing more and more performances of the liberated self and creates replicas of the liberation through the consumption of images of desirable bodies. The sexual representation of the body and its erotic possibilities in popular visual mediums not necessarily carry the stigma of ‘obscene’ any longer. The agency of the desiring body (of the displayer and the consumer) does not consider desexualisation to be a moral, virtuous or righteous project, certainly not in the world view of the urban middle class. On the contrary, the content is overtly aimed at appearing sexy, if not always aimed at arousal. In this regard, the perception of ‘obscenity’ has undergone a drastic shift, It ceases to be a perceived threat to the nation, as portrayed by Oza (2006: 79–101), during the 1996 Miss World event, which resulted into threats, public demonstrations and litigations against the event and its participants. This is not to suggest that bodies in general, and women’s bodies in particular, no longer ‘bear the burden of being cultural repositories, subjectively resolving the balance between the old and the new’ (Oza 2006: 7). But the liberal reception of the visually explicit body implies that not necessarily the body is considered to be a site where the protests against the advances of the global intrusions would be registered.
The social obligation of imagining the body as an object prone to getting contaminated by Western influences of vulgarity, which are impure enough to threaten the nation, takes an ultimate beating in the context of demonetisation. 19
In November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his decision to invalidate 500- and 1,000-rupee notes that comprised more than 85 per cent of the currency in circulation. The decision caused severe hardships across all classes and professionals due to unprecedented queues in banks and ATMs, and delay in the circulation of the new 2,000- and 500-rupee notes.
Think Demonetisation, Think Stay-on: It’s not a bitter pill. It’s a power capsule … Stop whining. Stop complaining. Just stay on. It’s not a sacrifice. It’s your duty. It’s your commitment towards nation building. Perform it smilingly, energetically with vigour and vitality. Just stay on.
The manner in which the message makes (sexual) potency an alibi of performance to tolerate the hardship, it announces the withdrawal of moral panicking around the issue of eroticizing the body.
The simultaneous processes of relaxation of the moral codes centring around the body within the urban middle classes and the acceptance of the eroticised body as a lifestyle choice is an integral part of the larger global visual trend. Such democratisation of desire is visually determining identities that are as flexible and as temporal until the next update. The expression of desire and the desire to express touches our lives and stimulates us frequently. It invites us to participate in the process through greater articulation of the desiring self through image-conscious bodies 20
Though in a slightly different context, the image consciousness of the participatory bodies can be witnessed amongst sports stars too. In the last two decades, players have engaged in making and displaying body work—may it be muscles or tattoos or piercing (tattooing and piercing, once confined to certain subcultures is now mainstream). Spectators are used to soccer super stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, Tim Howard, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Diego Forlán exhibiting their overtly muscular bodies or tattoos in several photo shoots, and not merely on Vogue covers but also through their own Twitter and Instagram channels. Elaborate tattoos decorate arms and chests of cricketers (AB de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Virat Kohli, Mitchell Johnson) inspiring replicas. It must also be noted how the sport jerseys became tighter, slimmer, shorter to suit the demands of either bringing out the admirable ideal body type or ensuring that everyone wearing the jersey has no other option but to get into that desirable shape to make the display look good. Today’s sport stars are also successful models endorsing a wide range of consumer goods, which also necessitates building of a body-image that goes much beyond the required physical demands of the game played. To play the game well, it is equally important to score off the field to successfully transfer the desirability of/for the body to an endorsed brand.
Image Meets Body–Body Meets Image: The Process of ‘Becoming’ the Body/Image
… the body is arguably the location from which all social life begins …. The self that is enacted through the body. Body is both a social construction and, at least at increase in level of cultural understanding, a distinctively individual possession. In this sense, the body is one critical point at which the social meets the individual and from which a self is created … the body is a primary indicator of self to the outside world.
—Gimlin (2002: 3)
For a certain informed, educated and affluent section of urban consumer, desire has truly been released from the clutches of moral constraints. After an overdose of proliferation of provocative content in the last two decades, it is not any longer the vamp or the item girl who dares to reveal. 21
See Mazumdar (2012: 79–109) for a detailed trajectory of the exit of the vamp.
The era of post-liberalisation stimulated a process of what Srivastava (2007: 32) would describe as ‘sexuality-as-consumption in present day India … in the unfolding of modernity of juxtapositions’. The post-liberalisation era also marks the advent of guilt-free consumption in India (Mazzarella 2003). Consumption not only emerged as yet another instrument of social differentiation in society but strategies of display also became increasingly performative in nature (Brosius 2010) as the ‘Indian private life … aligned with global standards through public display of the spaces where this might happen’ (Srivastava 2015: 119). Earlier, Deshpande (2003: 140) had noted the dependency of middle class on cultural capital, and Fernandes (2006: 33) had argued how cultural and symbolic practices shapes the new middle classes of the post-liberalisation era.
In such a context, conceiving of one’s own body as a commodity meant for circulation to earn maximum benefits or for aesthetic pleasure takes the performative element of consumption to the next stage of embodiment wherein the ‘body’ and the ‘image’ merge with one another. Differences are obliterated not merely between the image and the body but also between the image of the ideal type, the image of the worked-out body and the body of images. There remains no separation between the ‘image of the body’ and the ‘body of images’. 22
Such a narrative of merger of entities can be compared with the parallel collapse of distinction between the signifier and signified; between images and their referents (Baudrillard 1994(1981)).
The tangible body (which can be seen or touched or heard) is acting under the influence of images of ideal body types that are often impossible to attain, as these images of ideal types are imageries, imaginations and illusions of ideal body types, which are purely visual or virtual. The influence might cast a compelling or motivating impact encouraging the physical body to work with the body or work on the body in order to replicate the image of the ideal body type. Curating the replica of the ideal type through body work is merely half the process. The process is futile and incomplete unless it is complemented by the circulation of the worked-out body in the public domain primarily through social media for evaluation and exhibition. A constant visual creation of the curated body is fundamental to the body-project. Supported by ease of digital dissemination, the upgraded body has to be posted, updated and made public to be peer-reviewed. Once circulated, this image of the upgraded body serves as an ideal body type to be consumed by interested others and also reaffirms the image of the predominant ideal type that the body worked with.
In the process of consumption of the body-image and creation of identical body of images, the distinction between the image and the body ceases to exist. While working on a body with a referred ideal type in mind, the body is not merely emulating the image, rather through a process of embodiment, the body is becoming the image. Through lived experience, the difference between the aspired-reference image and the acquired-body-image is obliterated. Similarly, through conversion of the worked-upon body into an image for consumption and circulation, the body becomes an image yet again. Liquidation of the body/image distinction at a conceptual level leads to the reproduction of predominant images of ideal-type, wherein the body happens to be a site enabling the process of reproduction.
Interactions with a gym instructor substantiate the blending of his body with the images that influence the body. It is indeed a phenomenological exercise of becoming through looking at oneself or working with oneself, and inviting others to do so with a desire to fascinate. It is a loud accentuation of the perception—I am my body—voiced by Merleau-Ponty 23
This drive to fascinate (with the body) found an apt expression in these words: He has the impression that the alien gaze which runs over his body is stealing it from him, or else … that the display of his body will deliver the other person up to him, defenseless, and … the other will be reduced to servitude.
The author’s role as a commissioned photographer documenting the worked-out body to immortalise the work done on the body and give it a desired look before making it public (by transforming the body into images for consumption) reaffirms (a) stylised visibility being treated as social currency; (b) the conversion of the image-consuming self into visual commodity; and (c) transformation of the images of ideal body type that influenced body work into prototype images of the worked-out body shot to exhibit the work done on the body.
Full-length mirrors, loud music, metallic sound of weights that are lifted characterize the basement gym set-up. This is where bodies are built, muscles are toned and images are shaped. Fully aware of the comparatively docile imagery of the middle class, the gym instructor has taken up the task to reverse some of the typifications. He maintains that race and regional background has little to do with the act of working with a body and giving it the desired shape. He is quick to adapt his instructions according to what the clients want. He caters to their wishes more than imposing a fixed schedule on them, which is why he makes it a point to ask a client—what does he want, where does he want to get and in how much time. He finds it more challenging to work with bodies that fall short of adhering to the standards of fitness. Once he remarked, ‘greater the flaw, tougher the challenge’. Frank about his agenda of looking good in front of the mirror and helping others to get there as well, he is committed to the cause of promoting fitness and flaunting his worked-out body with a great sense of pride. Partly for the purpose of documentation and partly for the purpose of circulation (both online and offline) of his own body-image, he was keen to be shot in a manner that would make him appear distinct, grungy and gutsy (Figure 16). 24
This process documenting the transformation of self-imagery was earlier published as a photo essay (Sreedeep 2016).
The project of self-examination and self-correction reaches a new level in these training sessions that specifically focus on troubled spots of the body in order to tone them. The process of rectification gains a performative angle, as it happens to be a group activity where each one of the participants can see the others at work and see them in action either through direct gaze or as mirrored reflections. The instructor narrated several cases wherein his clients categorically mentioned the desire to feel good about their bodies and lose fat, and how that could improve their appearance or enhance their appeal and also brighten the prospects of attracting more attention. He was particular about being shot in a manner that would qualify as ‘bold and inviting, however not vulgar’
These images can be considered as an outcome of the ‘willing-to-be-gazed’ phenomenon to enhance one’s visual profile. In the process, the ‘body’ gets transformed into a zone where several equations of idealness, aspiration and sexuality are contested and negotiated. 25
It is not merely the sense of idealness that are negotiated through the act of building the body but also the sense of achievement, which is often portrayed as an obvious benefit of this exercise. In March 2016, The Viral Fever (a production company exclusively broadcasting on YouTube, delivering content bordering on the lines of spoof and sarcasm) produced a 16-minute satirical video called ‘The Making of Star Son’, where the fat star-kid transforms into a muscular stud through rigorous training. This physical transformation allows him to take away the bride in his launch film titled Jimwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (one with a worked-out body will take away the bride). While mocking the blockbuster from the early 1990s, Dilwale Duhaniya Le Jayenge, it is not incidental that ‘jim’ replaces ‘dil’ (heart) in a span of two decades. The video can be viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id1gnmQ_vxY (It had close to 900,000 views when it was last accessed on 12 September 2016).
Consuming Images/Consumed by Images
We witness the organic merger of ‘images that inspire bodies’ (images of bodies) and ‘bodies that produce identical images’ (body of images) that takes place place through the act of ‘working with/on one’s body’. After being influenced by the image of the predominant type and consciously working with the body to replicate, emulate or get somewhere closer to the illusive ideal-arrives the time to show. Now, the modified worked-upon body has to be circulated, posted and shared through numerous platforms of instant sharing. The body that has gone through the grind of care, control and curbing has to be viewed, reviewed and peer-reviewed by the significant or the known other. This cycle of consuming images and producing images for further consumption is an embodied process that leads to ‘bodies becoming the image’ and ‘images becoming the body’. Narratives of self-reconfiguration realised through body-projects that are related to the processes of ‘becoming’ through visual self-publication, self-surveillance, self-organising and self-disciplining-keep reproducing and replicating homogenous models of visuals of the self.
Acknowledgement
The author is thankful to CSDS, Sarai, Professor Dipankar Gupta, Professor Urmila Bhirdikar and Professor Kiran Bhushi for their comments and suggestions.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
A portion of the section titled ‘(Ob)scene Onscreen: Acceptability and Legitimacy of the Body-Image’ was conceived during my tenure at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, when I received the ‘Student Stipends for Research on the City’ by Sarai in 2007.