Photo Credits: AP (left), Wheaties (right)
Our cuture is obsessed with body image -- at least that's what marketers would have us think. Two recent representations of the male body stand out. On a poster for the retail giant Abercobie & Fitch, a six-packed model -- someone the caption calls an 'employee' -- poses with two young women or 'customers.' In another image, a man stands with a shopping bag advertising Wheaties and an idealized male form.
These images are powerful because they reflect something profoundly ethnocentric about our visual culture. So much of our preoccupation with body image is generated and maintained by captialism and consumerism. Our desire to "look" a certain way is fed by a culture of consumption, and we have the pictures to prove it.