“What seems especially important about plastic goods is the way in which the substantial and material form of plastic objects—that is, their very plasticity—is closely linked to their form of social circulation, that is, the commodity form.” (Brad Weiss. 1996. Plastic Teeth Extraction: An Iconography of Haya Gastrosexual Affliction. In The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: Consumption, Commoditization, and Everyday Practice. Pp. 175-176. Durham: Duke University Press.)
“The articulation of social ties through commodities, is, as Willis argues, at the heart of how sociality is experienced in consumer capitalism.” (Jacqueline Urla and Alan C. Swedlund. 1995. The Anthropometry of Barbie: Unsettling Ideals of the Feminine Body in Popular Culture. In Devient Bodies: Critical Perspectives on Difference in Science and Popular Culture. Jennifer Terry and Jacqueline Urla, eds. Pp. 282 Bloomington: Indiana University Press)
Examining these images, it is interesting to note that the female body here is represented in plastic forms. The Photo cover displays the female body as the plastic doll (to be bought and sold) and the Body Shop ad suggests the 'real' female body can be represented by a 'fake' plastic doll. In the context of plastic as the material for consumer goods, these female bodies can be read as consumable items. They are commodities (to be fetishized) and social relations occur through the ability of the female body to be circulated (bought and sold). However, examining Weiss' discussion of how 'plastic' and its meaning as a consumer good has been appropriated into the Haya body discourse and Urla and Swedlund's discussion of Barbie in popular western culture reveals that the jump to actually signifying the (female) body as a plastic good may not be such a far leap. In context of a capitalist consumer society (or the emergence of one where it did not previously exist), value and meaning arise through consumer goods. (In the same way that Ipods and Juicy jeans have come to signify to each other and ourselves a specific identity. Through consumer goods we validate our status in society.) Making the body plastic (by representation), the ads in one way subvert the status of goods in the construction of identity but also in another way act to secure their position in our social relations. The body, as plastic, is the ultimate commodity.
