9781626569768

masculine identities or whose gender is more complicated than one of two
options. 12 There were periods of time in history when the constructs of race
looked considerably different. Irish folks were not enfolded into Whiteness
when they arrived in America; neither were the Polish or Italians. 13 These
elements of our identities are socially constructed and transmitted through a
multitude of vehicles, including family, community, and culture. But no
vehicle has been as potent in shaping our perceptions of bodies on a global
scale as the vehicle of media.
Today we turn on the television or Netflix to watch our favorite series.
Listen to satellite radio as we drive to work. Read the newspaper at lunch or
scroll through the headlines populating our social media timelines. The
many forms of media we interact with are ubiquitous entities informing
nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Their pervasiveness and our rapid
access to them seem almost like science fiction (these days, something out
of a dystopian novel), but forms of mass media have always existed, merely
adapting and expanding as we have evolved. The ways in which we have
managed to disseminate information on a mass scale for the last century and
a half evidence the power of media. The town crier: a type of media. The
pony express: a form of media. Paul Revere’s fateful ride, when he yelled,
“The British are coming!” might have been a hashtag campaign if executed
today. Humans have always found ways to relay mass messages. The speed
and distance at which these messages travel are what have changed. As the
media has become a more efficient, expedient, and accessible force, its
value has ballooned beyond simply being the prevailing method of
disseminating information for a society. Just as importantly, it has become
an economic juggernaut for the structure of global capitalism to generate
wealth off our body shame—what I like to call the global Body-Shame
Profit Complex (BSPC).
Radical Reflection
All our body rules are made up!