The watchword is to get slim! Self-control and self-regulation of subjects' bodies in the AnaMaria magazine

Abstract

This article is an offshoot of a completed master's thesis and a doctoral dissertation in progress at the PPGEdu of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul. The study aims to problematize discourses on issues related to bodies analyzing some hegemonic quotes that reverberate throughout various environments of social circulation and endorse the fabrication of a beauty standard, which seems to be the aesthetic model currently standing, in which bodies “must” be slim, healthy, and happy as a means to longevity. Questions related to subjects’ bodies stand out from this investigation, understanding that such a body is culturally fabricated and conducted through the discourses that pervade it. The media is understood as a cultural pedagogy, which fabricates subjects and subjectivities. The empirical corpus of this research was composed of articles from the Dieting section of AnaMaria, a magazine published in print on a weekly basis. This work challenged some discursivities on issues related to the ways in which bodies are manufactured in contemporaneity, as it is understood that there is a process of subjectification operated by the media via a subtle, yet inviting, interpellation, which reaches various subjects in a powerful manner. The theoretical and methodological framework for this research was composed of concepts by the philosopher Michel Foucault, which were taken as analytical tools.