The Non-Existent Face of Brad Pitt on a Cover of a Magazine: On the Impossibility of Fun

Joanna Kulas

Abstract

The author considers the impossibility of fun in contemporary culture. Using the example of MTV’s I want a famous face, the author looks at the phenomena of fading identity among people experimenting with their own body image hoping to make it look like one’s idol. Using theories of Georges Bataille, Erving Goffman, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agambenas concept of profanation, she argues that the “spectacular” has the highest value in contemporary culture. The importance attached to consumption and display negates the possibility of fun. The idea to construct one’s body so that it conforms to the ideal, transforms the TV program into anti-fun. it becomes a meta-commentary on reality, in which the only real things are the ones that are attractive and visible. The author argues that the impossibility of profanations, and therefore the impossibility of fun, results in the lack of generation of new meanings, and the world which does not generate new meanings, is governed by copy. Kulas concludes that in the contemporary culture, where profanation is forbidden and made impossible, what becomes the ideal, is the perfect copy of whatever is held in highest regard.