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Growing Body Dissatisfaction among Woman: A study of the movie

. Bincy Mole Baby, Dini Eldho and Dr.K.Balakrishnan


Abstract

Under the light of the theories put forward by Foucault and his notion of power and to be more specific, those of biopower and biopolitics, power is constructive, difficult to resist, pervasive and normalizing force, one which often works both through and within the body, making it a central site of power. By the very concept of biopower what Foucault has in his mind are the diverse methods used to or rather aim to discipline, control and regulate the body. The rationale behind the use of various techniques of biopower such as normalization is that it works in the best interests of the population whether that interest relates to health, well being or lifestyle.  Normality is held as the ideal and the aim of the normalizing techniques is to produce individuals who have internalized the discipline and thus became normal. One of the key weapons used by biopower nowadays is media which has a wide reach. Media propagates the hegemonic ideologies, discourses and practices of the society. Women are the major victims of this body disciplining process.  American movie “I Feel Pretty” by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein is the story of a fat woman who is highly talented. But she is not confident about her looks. Accidently she forgets how she looks and thinks herself to be pretty and that boost her confidence and she achieves all her dreams. The movie is a kind of self realization made by the protagonist and a message to the society to stop judging people by their physical appearance.

Key words: Biopolitics, Biopower

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