MAKEOVER TELEVISION AND THE BEAUTY MYTH
/in Themes /by Kcs21blAAThe media have an important role in communicating cultural values and ideas, but they also affect the outlining and defining the concepts of beauty. Therefore, the media representation processes are key to forming cultural “norms” of a beautiful female body, while consumption oriented society finds esthetic surgery a simpler and faster way of democratizing and achieving this ideal. As a mixture of the mentioned motives, the makeover television is an example of media content whose analysis can uncover the meanings and affirmation mechanisms of the contemporary beauty myth – an idea suggested by Naomi Wolf. These TV shows can be viewed as particular media rituals, initiating into the myth and legitimizing its social role. Reality makeover TV show Moje novo ja, aired on Prva television, is analysed to uncover the key moments of media representation of current idea(l)s of a desired woman`s beauty, the consequences of such ideas and the social power relations which the myth itself portrays.
NORA’S TARANTELLA: DANCING ON THE EDGE OF GENDER NORMS
/in Themes /by Kcs21blAAThis article focuses on the tarantella scene in Henrik Ibsen’s drama A Doll’s House. Based on a close reading of the text, it discusses whether this scene can be interpreted as the moment of Nora’s famous disillusionment in the patriarchal bourgeois ideology. The aim of this paper is to present arguments against such conclusion. In contrast to the interpretations of Nora’s tarantella as a successful ritual performance during which the play’s protagonist undergoes a full cognitive transformation, this article argues that the tarantella scene from the Act Two can rather be seen as a moment which symbolizes the (melo-)dramatic peak of the protagonist’s devotion to the strictly defined bourgeois norms of “proper behaviour”.
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