Ageist Ideology and Discourses of Control in Skincare Product Marketing

Abstract

The face is the part of the body most often exposed, and the part that is most often the normative focus of gaze and attention in private as well as public contexts. And the face is endowed with heavy semiotic significance; it is ‘a prime symbol of the self’ (Synnott, 1993: 2). Contemporary consumer culture sees much of individuals’ (and particularly women’s) symbolic capital as realised through their bodies (Bourdieu, 1977; Featherstone and Hepworth, 1991), and the face has an immeasurable role to play in the achievement of this capital. As Synnott puts it: the face is… the principal determinant in the perception of our individual beauty or ugliness, and all that these perceptions imply for self-esteem and life-chances. (1993: 73)