Kardashian and culture

While virtually the entire working, middle, and upper classes of the West, when not absolutely required to do otherwise, wear shapeless, sub-prole dress wherever they go and whatever they are doing, so as to look like everyone else and demonstrate the absolute freedom of their self from any traditional or external standards, celebrities move, at least on the surface, in the opposite direction, dressing in the most spectacular and idiosyncratic ways possible, and also sculpting their faces and bodies via cosmetic surgery. But they too are expressing the untrammeled autonomy of the self. The other day I posted “Kim Kardashian: a study in self-creation,” about the extraordinary evolution of Kardashian’s face between 2006 and 2010, as seen in many photographs before and after her cosmetic procedures. Kidist Paulos Asrat has further observations about Kardashian as a cultural phenomenon.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 01, 2012 05:28 PM | Send