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September 28, 2005
Mimesis or Social Construction
In response to this quote I believe that society uses mimesis, or languages and images to represent the world that surrounds us. This is something that it perfectly natural, because language and images are what help us to understand the things that are in the world. This is especially true in terms of the social status of people. Social status is understood by images of clothing, food, money, and other possessions. This is type of mimesis is shown throughout the celebrity lifestyle.
People see celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt, and Halle Berry and these type of people become an imitation of real life. People believe that they should look like these people or want to look like them. Just seeing pictures of people who have the "perfect body" (which is a loose term) or "the look", creates people to mimic those identities. This is why there are so many cliques and groups of people who all want to be like someone or portray a certain image.
Mimesis is not only true for images that we see in society, but also words and language. Sometimes there are popular words that should be said in order for someone to fit in, or words/sayings that someone might say that will ostracize them from others. We as individuals use these images and words to construct how we see the world. Although we pretty much don't have to do it on our own, since we are constantly bombarded by media influence. However, coming up with our own ideas about the world gives us our own identities.
Posted by lcisperez at September 28, 2005 04:41 PM
Comments
Hi Yasmin,
You wrote, "...these type of people become an imitation of real life" about celebrities and personally I agree with you. I think that movies and magazines are successful because they produce what the society want to see. The images in the movies and magazines feed our desire to be part of adventerous or luxurious lives of the characters in the movies or celebrities. Through viewing the images, we are experiencing it in some ways, such as imagining. Yet, I also agree with you that each person have unique identity, even though we are being bannered constantly to be in the mainstream, stereotypical person. Your writing was precise and lead me through straight to your point. :)
Posted by: Zaya at September 28, 2005 09:13 PM
Yasmin,
I just want to mention that certain celebrities do become a part of real life, but they are not originally there. It is individual perceptions that lead to trends in society, and thus changes in the mainstream. For instance, someone comes up with a dress design, or new hairstyle. Once other people incorporate that new idea in their own understanding of the world, then it becomes widespread. Mimesis seems to only address the representation of things, and doesn't talk about how things come about to be imitated. Social Construction does a good job of that.
Just my opinion.
Posted by: Lauren Searls at September 29, 2005 10:58 AM
I think there is not question that fashions, styles, fads, etc., spread via a process of imitation. But what we are talking about here is more in relation to how we make meaning from our experience.
Yasmin, you highlight the process by which a certain type of culture spreads...and Lauren you took it a step further to look into how and why we might want to imitate someone in the public eye...nice thinking!
Posted by: Ellen Grabiner at September 29, 2005 08:57 PM
Yasmin,
I love how you put an interesting spin on mimesis. I think it is very interesting that you connected our desire to be like celebrities to this topic. It certainly makes me think about this "debate" again because you are absolutey right, we do copy what we see around us and what we think is cool. Great job!! (But I still have to go with social construction!)
--Brenna D.
Posted by: Brenna at October 1, 2005 05:48 PM