Bodily Regimes

A provocative reading of the use and manipulation of the body in advertising under Italian Fascism, "Bodily Regimes" offers an enlightening look at the relationship between Fascism and capitalism. Acknowledging the "backwardness" of Italy compared to other economies of the 1930s, Pinkus explores the reciprocal relation between the emerging "modern" market, advertising and the body in the Italian Fascist state. "Bodily Regimes" is unique in its focus on the intertwined relations of race, class and gender in the construction of the Italian subject. Pinkus examines what the images of bodies in advertising demonstrated about consumerism in Fascist Italy; how they shifted gender ideologies; what meanings African black bodies brought to peninsular, white ones; and what the implications of the eventual disappearances of the body in advertising might have been. Her analysis is especially timely as racial questions emerge in Italy at a moment when the party structure that has effectively masked or repressed the continuity between the Fascist and capitalist regimes since World War II has dissolved.
Throughout the study, Pinkus highlights the importance the Fascist Regime placed on autarchy - the State project for economic self-sufficiency - and links it to social and cultural images. Her emphasis on this project helps illustrate ways in which fascism served as a means to bridge the gap between the Italian economy and that of capitalist countries, a view which carries implications for the culture of capitalist countries today. For those who question the relationship of the body to power, "Bodily Regimes" is interesting reading.