Personal appearance and consumption in popular culture: A framework for descriptive and prescriptive analysis

The theme of personal appearance and its relation to consumer behavior in the culture of consumption plays a major role in our popular arts and entertainment. On this theme, the authors begin with a general consideration of the role played by physical attractiveness in interpersonal relations. They next develop a typology to suggest a framework that embodies four perspectives on personal appearance and consumption in popular culture: Configuration, Transfiguration, Refiguration, and Disfiguration. From a descriptive viewpoint, they then discuss motivations, attitudes, analogues, and exemplars associated with each perspective. Finally, they present prescriptions concerning the normative implications that the contrasting perspectives potentially carry in terms of their social messages and moral meanings. In both the descriptive and prescriptive phases of these analyses, the authors rely heavily on illustrations drawn from popular culture in general and from motion pictures in particular. Thus, the framework for descriptive and prescriptive analysis sheds light on the meanings conveyed by works of art or entertainment and thereby provides an interpretive window through which to view important consumption‐and appearance‐related aspects of the human condition.