engleski

“COLONIZED CREATIVITY” AND REPRESENTATIONS OF DISCIPLINED AGEING AN ANALYSIS OF THE PIRELLI CALENDAR (2017)

Definitions and interpretations of creativity have been changed over time and they reflect dominant values and power relations in society. In the context of post-industrial/neoliberal capitalism creativity is recognized as “the prime mover” of the economy (Florida 2010) and it is generally defined as “original ideas that have value” (Harris acc. to Kalin 2016). Advertising and marketing industry are domains where creativity is highly valued – “more- creative campaigns” are “more effective” and more profitable, particularly those with a dimension of “artistic creativity” (Reinartz & Saffert 2013). Photography is a particularly inspiring medium for the description and analysis of a social phenomenon (Harper 1988). Goffman’s influential study of gender roles in advertisements inspired many researchers to critically analyze visual texts disseminated by the media, with the aim of unmasking their latent ideological messages. Commercial photographs of old age, ageing and older persons are “symptoms of general ideas about age, but also play an important part in producing ideational images and models of age” (Kampmann, 2015).The analysis focuses on a promotional/artistic project of the Pirelli, a well-known multinational corporation, which has been publishing calendars famous for their objectivizing and hypersexualized presentation of women since 1964. The 2017 edition of the Pirelli calendar was shot by renowned photographer Peter Lindbergh and it promotes new and “creative” way of representing “ageing femininities” (Dolan & Tinckell 2012). Photographs in campaign present a very complex intersection of two discourses: the discourse of normative and corporeal femininity and the discourse of successful ageing. By partially reconstructing and redefining the deep-rooted and dominant concepts of feminine beauty, feminine women, attractive body and ageing, it creates a new discourse which, on the one hand, ostensibly reflects emancipatory and creative impulses, and on the other establishes new forms in which the dominant ideology of corporeal femininity crosscuts with the neoliberal idea of successful ageing. The Pirelli calendar 2017 is an example how critical ideas are commodified and how “colonized creativity” (Kalin 2016) works.

creativity, "colonized creativity, femininity, ageing, body, Pirelli calendar, Peter Lindbergh

nije evidentirano