That Clean Feeling: Cleanliness, Advertising, and the Civilizing Process
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
YU Faculty Profile
Abstract
It is well documented that beauty, body size, and fashion are preferences subject to changing norms and standards.1 Such a phenomenon is evidenced through even a cursory examination of art and beauty throughout the ages: Rubens’s voluptuous females – considered the epitome of the sensuous, beautiful ‘nude’ in his time 2 – would never get a job in Hollywood today, for instance. Paintings, statues, drawings, sketches, and even action figures demonstrate how certain body shapes are valued and idolized within a group of people at a given time.3 Accordingly, beauty and fashion are socially constructed; there are fundamental differences in the quintessential standard for each that can be traced temporally throughout history. At the same time, there are a number of attitudes and behavioral practices that seem to be universal, pre-cultural, and perhaps even innate. The drive for success, contact with others, nurturance, stable communities, and intelligence are values or attitudes that all people exhibit and strive for cross-culturally and throughout time.4