O corpo de Vênus: mediações sociais formativa dos valores estéticos corporais em adolescentes do sexo feminino na contemporaneidade

Abstract

The image-driven and discursive language concerning the esthetic values of womens bodies is widely diffused in a forceful, commanding way within the medium of mass communication in contemporary society, through incessant messages aimed at persuasion and seduction. Today, the media is an important social mediator as a reference point of ethics and esthetics. Nevertheless, other important social mediators that are equally incorporated in our daily lives have also proven to be significant in the process of the formation of self-esteem and in the conception iconic of beauty. The object of study of this research is esthetics, or more precisely, esthetic body values, assembled by multiple discursive reverberations from social mediation in the current context. The purpose of this work is to stimulate reflections on the importance of the current social mediators in the pedagogical process of the construction of subjectivity and identity in relation to the corporal esthetic values that have been socially established. A qualitative approach to this topic was chosen and the subjects investigated are adolescent females between the ages of 16 and 20 years of age who attend a public urban high school in Belo Horizonte. The initial sample consisted of 40 subjects and there was a verticalization to 8 at the end of the investigative process. The initial research instrument consisted of a pilot questionnaire that later delimited the other instruments that were used, such as: a semi-structured questionnaire, production of drawings portraying images of ideal beauty and of self-image, and a deep analysis of the data through the performance of a focus group. The research organized the analysis into several orienting reference groups: the socio-historical construction of beauty, the esthetic categories selected by the subjects, and social intervention. We present, however, some qualitative data with the intention of enlarging the possibilities of interpretative readings. We investigated several fields of knowledge, predominantly in sociology and social communication, for elucidative inspiration on which to base the problematic in question. Meanwhile, theoretical support from social psychology and sociobiology was also explored given that reflecting upon corporality requires a multidisciplinary approach. The analyzed and interpreted data signaled a recurrence and homogeneity of esthetic patterns and categories in the reference point of present-day female beauty, despite declarations proclaiming diversity. The choice of esthetic female beauty, weight, hair, fashion, and skin (ethnic) made by the subjects as being relevant are linked to the connotation of seduction and sexuality. The significant social mediators in the formative process of esthetic body values cited by the subjects revert back to family, friends, and the television medium, with special emphasis on soap operas. Family mediator discourse was identified by the subjects as important in the formation of self-image, where as television media appear as an important mediator in the conception of idealized female body images. These are precise conclusions, but not dichotomous, as there is a tenuous threshold of transience concerning the social mediators in the formation of the body images. Social groups friends as the other social mediators cross this threshold. Despite there being this distinction of social mediators in the formation of self-image and idealized body image, the data magnify the value and dynamic, articulated pedagogical flux from the social mediators in the formation of the esthetic values of womens bodies through a hybrid discursive appropriation on the part of the subjects. This discursive synthesis resounds significantly in the construction of the identity and subjectivity of the subjects through the multiple resignifications that they themselves attribute to these discourses in their social interactions and daily reality.