The woman body in review: the imperative of beauty

Abstract

The media challenges us, creating ways of life and showing us how to behave in various situations. Therefore, we propose to understand the investments on beauty conveyed on Para Ti magazine, in 1940, reflecting on the possible conditions of such messages and the way they circulated producing a subjective mindset and teaching their readers how to be beautiful. We understand that the media provides material with which people forge their identity. This is a qualitative study based on post-structuralist cultural studies. The research corpus consists of issues of the Argentinean magazine Para Ti, from 1940. A cultural analysis was carried out based on concepts suggested by philosopher Michel Foucault, such as power and discipline. These analyses were organized under the marker named "the imperative of beauty". Considering the content presented by the magazine, it is possible to understand the relationship we have with today's image of a beautiful body, associating it with thinness, a balanced diet, exercise, normality, and health.