The chapter of James Joyce 's Ulysses entitled "Nacissa" tells the story of a young, beautiful girl named Gerty McDowell, who has fantasies of her perfect life with her perfect husband. She thinks that she has found this man in the novel 's protagonist, Leopold Bloom, with whom she has a sexual encounter on the beach. It is only until after this encounter that the reader learns Gerty is physically disabled. Before this point, Gerty is the epitome of physical beauty, which Joyce shows through describing her beauty as regal and otherworldly; She exemplifies the idea of the Victorian era beauty queen—who participates in pageants and become a spectacle to be viewed—and often times exaggerates it to overcompensate for her disability. However, Gerty
The role of beauty pageants is to “ritually mark the bodies on view, rendering them into icons that verify the status quo. The beauty pageant "traffics in the ideal" in order to "give the shape and definition to the figure of the normative citizen of the democratic order" (181). This ritual marking of the body is done through "structured seeing" (185). The structured seeing created by three parties – – “the viewer, viewed, and the mediator"—is not "participatory" but is rather created through the "pornography of distance" (185). This allows "a kind of cultural didacticism we are an array of scripts, roles and positions can be writ large" (185). The mediator "choreographs the relationship [between the spectator and spectacle] and manipulates its conventions for their own ends" (185). However, the spectacle is always "overwhelmingly conspicuous while the viewer and the intermediaries remain obscure" (186). Essentially, the spectacle is always watched, but no say in how they are perceived. The spectacle is the only thing being watched. It is the only body that is truly present. Therefore, the "choreography between a disembodied spectator and a embodied spectacle enlists cultural norms and exploits embodied differences for commercial and creating a rhetorical opposition between supposedly extraordinary figures and putatively ordinary citizens" (186). This is resoundingly true of Gerty
699) and her "nainsook knickers, the fabric that caress the skin, better than those other Pettiwidth, the green" (XIII. 724 - 725). By showing Bloom her underwear, she completely transforms into the beauty queen. This is because the beauty queen 's "costuming is augmented by the beauties eroticize poses, which instruct viewers on the social position for which she is the icon: a corporal other for male consumption" (Garland Thomsen 188). However, unlike the beauty queen, Gerty’s poses are not passive and she is not only a thing to be consumed, but she consumes,
In “Toddlers In Tiaras” Skip Hollandsworth purpose is to get readers to understand that pageants are teaching young girls to young women that the sexualization of their looks are their main value, leaving a negative effect on contestants physically. He believes parents are usually the main reason why young girls join the pageants to begin with so, he targets parents as the audience of his essay. To get readers to understand his point of view and to persuade them to agree with him he displays evidences from reliable sources using ethos, pathos and logos throughout the article.
The judges of the Miss America pageant have changed through the years to reflect the changing ideals of the pageant itself. “In the early years of the pageant, the judges were primarily artists and illustrators, in part because such men – and they were all men – were considered to have the best eye for the beautiful feminine form. In more recent years, efforts have been made to attract judges who represent the various facets of the pageant” (Banet-Weiser 54). The selection of judges from the fields represented in the pageant show that the Miss America pageant is more than just a strictly beauty pageant. “Defining beauty is an elusive, if not impossible task. No single definition fits because as culture evolves, so does the...
One of the central themes of theatrical form is identity and the catalyst by which identity is formed is the body. In using the body as the site of formation of individual identity, women are “uniquely identified with their anatomy” and specifically the parts of their anatomy that differ from that of men (Callaghan 30). Because women are thus defined by their relation ...
In order to figure out what the sentence ”The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.” written in the book The Society of the Spectacle means, we have to first understand the meaning of “images”. According to Guy Debord, images are illusions, such as money, fame, or irresistible sexual appeal that are created by the spectacle. Images are representations of all human desires. However, these images are represented by all sorts of commodities and they are non-life. They are seen valuable only when human desires and pursuits exist. With the endless pursuits of the images or “enormous positivity” created by the spectacle, numerous human activities are involved, thus
James Joyce uses sexuality throughout his works to establish an intimate and relatable bond between the reader and the characters in his works. All of Joyce’s works address issues in sexuality, which presents the idea that sexuality was of upmost importance to him. Given that sex is a large part of human existence, it is a good way to get the attention of the reader. A substantial amount of characters throughout Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man are driven by sexual desire. In fact, there is so much sex throughout in Ulysses that “early publishers and critics refused to publish it because of its vulgarity; the sexuality featured in Ulysses was part of the claims that the novel was obscene” (Ivie). Sex is a wonderful way to connect the reader to the character, and Joyce is talented in being able to bring the reader right into the sexually suggestive minds of the characters. Each character in all of Joyce’s works are defined by their sexuality and are in search of some type of self-identity, and through that idea is how Joyce best portrays that sexuality itself may be defined by adultery, prostitution, and masturbation and other bodily functions.
...hat the drag show can be interpreted from different point of view. I specifically focused on how the event could appear to everyone to be very attractive. The reason why people perceived the Annual Drag Show was entertaining is not only because the performance itself was interesting, but also because it provided unusual experiences. Escaping from the daily routine, meeting people from the minority group, breaking the group norm, and expressing one’s suppressed identity were the unusual experiences that were given by the drag show, and also those were the different ways to enjoy the event. We often do not pay much attention to how others perceive the world. Needless to say, people see the world through their own lenses and interpret the same world in different ways. The Fourth Annual Drag Show of Pasadena City College was a perfect example to examine such a tendency.
... beauty pageants." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada] 9 Mar. 2012: L4. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
reaffirms the audience’s values and attitudes” (695). With this, we can start to dissect the
In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey states that, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.” (Mulvey 40). A woman’s role in the narrative is bound to her sexuality or the way she
If there is any confusion that the young woman in pink is supposed to be a spectacle, one only needs to look at the other figures within the canvas. Male figures appear to be both whispering and watching the young woman; she is on display. One male figure, placed in the middle left almost off the canvas, looks directly out of the canvas to the viewer as a reminder that we too are reveling in the
Besides the attractive women in half-naked outfits, what does the Miss America Beauty Pageant really represent? This pageant lowers the self-esteem of women who don’t feel like they meet the standards of what society thinks is a beautiful woman. The pageant alone requires contestants to spend a huge amount of money. The message that this pageant is sending is that all women should compete against each other. The Miss America pageant gains millions of viewers, but people fail to notice the population of women who are not happy with themselves. This pageant has many issues regarding women’s image and the definition of beauty that people need to pay attention to.
When beauty pageants became a part of the American society in 1920, it also became a marketing tool. In 1921, in the state of New Jersey, in Atlantic City beauty pageants were used to make tourist stay...
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, the main female character, Daisy Buchanan, is portrayed by, Nick, the narrator, only by her superficial qualities. “Guided only by Nick’s limited view of her, readers often judge Daisy solely on the basis of her superficial qualities” (Fryer 43). What the reader sees through the eyes of Nick only appears as a woman whose impatience and desire for wealth and luxury cost her the love of her life, Gatsby. Nick’s narrow perception does not allow one to see that “…[Daisy’s] silly manner conceals a woman of feeling or that her final ‘irresponsibility’ towards Gatsby stems from an acute sense of responsibility towards herself” and that Nick “…clearly does not understand what motivates her” (Fryer 43). One can easily view Daisy as a victim. Fitzgerald distinctly exposes Daisy’s need for stability, which, according to Fitzgerald or perhaps the mentality of the time period, can only be found in a man. “Her need for stability was immediate, and she attempted to satisfy that need through something tangible, something close at hand” (Fryer 51). This “need” that Fitzg...
Works CitedMcLellan, Lizzy. "New Pageant Focuses on Inner Beauty." Frederick News-Post, The (MD) 18 June 2013: Newspaper Source Plus. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
The shape of the theatre allows each spectator to see some of his fellow spectators as well... so they could see and respond to their collective reaction t...