The Theater Plays the Body. Replication of the Canon of Beauty among Young Actresses in the Theater

Anna Dwojnych; Katarzyna Kuczkowska-Golińska

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.14.2.05

Authors

Anna Dwojnych Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
Katarzyna Kuczkowska-Golińska

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.14.2.05

Keywords:

Body, Canon Beauty, Eating Disorders, Theater, Sociology of the Body

Abstract

The article presents the results of our independent qualitative research conducted in Polish theater circles. In-depth interviews have been conducted with fourth-year female students of acting faculties from four state theater schools and with lecturers working at these faculties. The aim of the study was to answer the question whether the theater has currently become a place where bodily images are being standardized and beauty canons reproduced. The research material gathered allows for the formulation of the following conclusions: 1) studying at a theater school significantly impacts the perception of one’s own body, 2) there is a widespread belief among the students concerning the importance of the body (and the beauty thereof) in the profession of an actor, which results in subjecting the body to some regimes, often destructive ones, 3) the pressure to have a perfect body is so strongly internalized in the theater circles that it becomes imperceptible to those who yield under this pressure.

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Author Biographies

Anna Dwojnych, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland

Anna Dwojnych, M.A. in Sociology and in Philosophy. PhD student in the Department of Cultural Research of the Institute of Sociology at Nicolaus Copernicus University (Torun, Poland). Her research interests focus on the sociology of the body (especially the aestheticization of the body with aesthetic medicine), popular culture, and Lars von Trier’s movies.

Katarzyna Kuczkowska-Golińska

Katarzyna Kuczkowska-Golińska, a sociologist, PhD candidate at the Department of Groups Interest in the Institute of Sociology at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. The main area of her research interests covers new institutional theory, the phenomena of sociology of theater and performance, sociology of art, sociology of culture, she is especially involved in research on studies of institutions of art.

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