Piętno odciśnięte na ciele: Otyłość i defekty urody w kulturze „instant”.
A stigma imprinted on the body: Obesity and beauty defects in an “instant” culture.

Summary/Abstract: Z. Melosik called the contemporary culture the “instant” culture which meant that modern people are characterized by the incapacity for postponing gratifications, that is desire or even demand for the instant fulfillment of their wishes. In this culture there is no place for the sick or the elderly, nor for people who do not fulfill the exorbitant aesthetic standards of pop culture e.g. because of their obesity or more or less distinctive beauty defects. One could believe that the days presented in Lynch’s Elephant Man are long gone. A result of the culture that only feigns liberality is social exclusion, one could say “in velvet gloves”, of the obese and people with beauty defects, as well as self-exclusion of people who believe that because of their looks they should be condemned and who try to fight these real, or often even not real, beauty defects. This is manifested by anorexia or dysmorphophobia. While anorexia is considered to be a dangerous disorder, dysmorphophobia from which the majority of the clients of cabinets of aesthetic surgery suffers, slips clinical statistics. The article will present the newest research results and deepened thoughts on the manifestations and results of this current expression of stigmatizing otherness.

• Details
• Contents