The Effacement of our Identity

In "Material Girl': The Effacements of Postmodern Culture," Susan Bordo argues that, "we are surrounded by homogenizing and normalizing images- images whose content is far from arbitrary, but instead suffused with the dominance of gendered, racial, class and other cultural iconography" (1101).

I agree with Bordo as this statement is evident throughout our society. Although our country consists of a melting pot of ethnic groups and cultures, through advertisements, our identities have been turned into a commodity. She adds that, "the very advertisements whose copy speaks of choice and self-determination visually legistlate the effacement of individual and cultural difference and circumscribe our choices" (1101). Bordo correlates advertisements to effacement, because essentially, they are the same thing. Ads sell an image that they argue, every "body" needs. Makeup, hair color, clothes, and contacts all "cure," our bodily disorder, thus making our sickly bodies healthy.

Through this effacement, these advertisers are essentially constructing our identity and culture into a distinctive product that can only be achieved through consumption. Our identity is to be bought and the higher the bidder goes, the closer they will reach this idealized identity. We no longer live as a singular individual, but within a normalized society that accepts a standardized perception of beauty.

A work by Barbara Kruger alludes to the argument that shopping creates ones existence

Bordo, Susan. Material Girl: The Effacements of Postmodern Culture.