Aesthetics, Popular Visual 285

Culture, and Designer

Capitalism
Paul Duncum

Abstract

While rejecting modernist philosophical aesthet-

ics, the author argues for the use in art education
of a current, ordinary-language definition of
aesthetics as visual appearance and effect, and
its widespread use in many diverse cultural sites
is demonstrated. Employing such a site-specific
use of aesthetics enables art education to more
clearly address the realities of everyday life under
designer capitalism, a socio-economy based on
the drive to create evermore desire. Aesthetic
manipulation is viewed as a primary means to
facilitate the smooth operation of this system.
The recent craze for Bratz dolls is used to illus-
trate the centrality of aesthetics to designer capi-
talism. Finally, the author offers suggestions as to
how art education can view consumer products
like Bratz as pedagogic opportunities.

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286 The kind of aesthetics considered in this article is grasp their reasoning [8]. Focused narrowly on
Paul Duncum quite different from the modernist aesthetics that issues to do with a very limited range of cultural
was so influential in art education throughout forms, and refusing to consider its own deeply
most of the twentieth century. Modernist aesthet- ideological nature, the discipline of philosophical
ics, as derived principally from Kant and his pred- aesthetics has preferred to see its subject as
ecessors, was typically characterized as separate above social valuation [9]. In this context it has
from life, universal, self-sufficient, focused mainly seemed preferable to many to avoid aesthetics
on art and entirely uplifting. It effectively sepa- altogether and deal instead in the language of
rated fine art from popular culture, seeing the representation. Imagery is mined for its political
former as quasi spiritual, the later as base [1]. By and social messages about class, race, gender
contrast, this article draws upon how aesthetics is and other social issues. How are dominant
employed outside the specialised areas of art, classes, races and males represented so that
literature and art education [2]. Aesthetics is their privilege is made, literally, to look natural?
viewed in site-specific and social terms – in what What representational tactics are employed to
has become an ordinary language sense of the de-legitimize subordinate groups? Whose voices
word as applied to everyday experience as diverse are silenced altogether by their complete absence
as sport, consumer goods, plastic surgery, televi- from representation? And always, whose inter-
sion and so on. I argue that adopting this use of ests are served by visual representations? Influ-
aesthetics is particularly useful for those advanc- enced by Communications Theory, Deconstruc-
ing a visual culture approach to art education [3]. tion, Semiotics and Discourse Analysis, among
It allows art educators better to deal with the other approaches, these are the typical kinds of
increasing aestheticisation of everyday life under questions asked by scholars in a wide variety of
conditions associated with the current develop- fields [10], and given the specialization of aesthet-
ment of consumerist capitalism, often called late ics to questions about the appreciation of art it is
capitalism [4], or what jagodzinski calls ‘designer hardly surprising that some have little time for
capitalism’ [5] where the economy is no longer what they see as obfuscating and irrelevant.
thought to be based on desire so much as on the By contrast the present article is based on a
drive to continually create evermore desire. I will twofold position: to acknowledge that modernist
discuss Bratz dolls as an example. Bratz appeal to philosophical aesthetics is a historical artefact of
their preteen girl market as ‘so cool’ by offering particular political and economic circumstances;
what is arguabley a ‘hooker chic’ aesthetic, and at and to extend an understanding of aesthetic
the same time they offer an empowering identity experience from elite, high art to the popular arts.
in part by becoming a consumer [6]. Neverthe- I am following here what I take to be an approach
less, I will suggest that like all other consumer adopted by Cultural Studies [11]. In this view,
products, they offer pedagogic opportunities to aesthetic experience is not dismissed; it is
art educators who take seriously the visual culture viewed as intimately tied to issues of power, poli-
of their students. tics and the efficient workings of the economy.
As Raymond Williams, one of the founders of
Aesthetics as problematic Cultural Studies in Britain, argued, ideology is
As a branch of philosophy focused on beauty, always infused with an interest in how aesthetic
especially with regard to just the fine arts, and experience delivers ideology and, further, remains
indebted heavily to Kant’s idealism, aesthetics irreducible to ideology [12]. And as Richard
has been roundly dismissed, for example, as ‘an Hoggart, another foundational member of
old patriarchal do-dah about transandental formal Cultural Studies, writes, ‘Unless you know how
values’ [7]. For many outside the specialized areas these things work as art… what you say about
of art, literature and art education, aesthetics them will not cut very deep’ [13]. In short, what is
appears to be a forbidden subject, the bad child important is curiosity not only about what things
they do not want to talk about, and it is not hard to mean, but also about how things mean. As Felksi

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puts it: ‘Can anyone sit through a Hollywood to be aesthetic and so were not fashioned as 287
blockbuster that is orchestrated and marketed such, and partly because under modernism many Paul Duncum
around the spectacular nature of its special of the cultural forms previously excluded from
effects and still believe that popular culture is aesthetic consideration have now had such
primarily about content? [14]’ This multiple or consideration extended to them. Taken together,
pluralistic aesthetics is recognisable in the work the examples below – and they are only examples
of North American art educators, notably Laura – represent recognition that aesthetic experience
Chapman, Vincent Lanier and Graeme Chalmers has become critical for understanding the condi-
[15], as well as strikingly apparent among those tions of designer capitalism, and that while some
proposing a visual culture approach in North are life-enhancing, others are not, and while some
America [16], Britain [17] and Europe [18]. are pleasant, others are anything but.
Harris [23] and Henry [24] are both deeply
Defining aesthetics ambiguous about ‘the aesthetics of consumer-
A pluralistic aesthetic agenda is effectively founded ism’. While acknowledging the pleasures it offers,
on how aesthetics is used in common parlance. In Harris finds it morally unworthy and Henry finds it
1976, Williams wrote that ‘nowadays’ aesthetics is visually deficient. Others are equally ambivalent
most commonly defined beyond the specialized about aesthetics, referring to ‘the masochistic
areas of art and literature, as ‘questions of visual aesthetic’ of certain Hollywood films [25]; ‘the
appearance and effect’ [19]. In 1991, Regan simi- anorexic aesthetic’ [26] that others call ‘heroin
larly wrote: ‘ In the past twenty or thirty years, chic’ [27], and the ‘trash aesthetics’ of low budget
especially “aesthetics” has become a short hand horror films [28]. Emphasizing such ambiguity,
term for distinguishing one set of stylistic and the term beauty is now often recast as ‘danger-
structural principles from another’ [20]. This view ous, transgressive, subversive. It can be
rescues from specialized use the meaning of the grotesque or even ugly’, a development referred
Greek term aesthesis from which the word aesthet- to by Brand as ‘the dark side of beauty’ [29].
ics is derived. Aesthesis meant sense data in Similarly, Leddy and Kupfer separately
general. It meant all perceptual experience, and it describe the ‘aesthetics of the everyday’ in terms
was used to discriminate between material things of both agreeable and negative qualities [30].
that could be seen and those that could only be Leddy is principally concerned with how ordinary,
imagined. Aesthetics as aesthesis allows us to visually untrained people arrange their living and
address agreeable experience but also disagree- working spaces by employing the products of
able experience, the pleasant but also the unpleas- consumer society, the results of which can be
ant. Williams’ examples are the ‘lulling, the dulling, joyous, charming and fun, but also bombastic,
the chiming, the overbearing’ [21]. Furthermore, a dull and banal. Kupfer discusses media violence
polyaesthetics allows us to speak of sense percep- and media sexuality, both of which are visceral as
tion in terms of specific situations rather than they appeal directly to the spinal cord rather than
abstract generalisations, to consider the actual the mind. Kupfer describes ultra violence as ‘the
variation in intentions and response that exist sights and sounds of human destruction; the
within the contexts of particular cultural sites. tearing of flesh, mashing of bone, letting of
blood’, the purpose of which is ‘an appreciation
The vernacular use of aesthetics of its sensational content, its aesthesis’ [31]. He
A site-specific definition of aesthetics in terms of also describes a society saturated by media sexu-
visual appearance and effect, of stylistic and struc- ality that is perverse because it almost always
tural principles, is clearly evident in many recent involves voyeurism.
studies. Areas of life never before considered Others discuss athletic, muscular male bodies
aesthetic have undergone, in an oft-used term, a in advertisements as having become an aesthetic
process of ‘aestheticization’ [22]. This is partly norm widely available for aesthetic admiration
because many areas were never before intended [32]. Others still discuss ‘female bodily aesthet-

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288 ics’ [33] to which I will turn later in discussing attitudes towards it are ambiguous: ‘We both long
Paul Duncum Bratz dolls. The use of aesthetics to describe for and fear its seductions’ [41].
plastic surgery and reconstructive dentistry But we are not only seduced; we are also
clearly draw upon the pleasing associations of simultaneously lulled and kept anxious. With
the term [34], as do the many ways in which television often droning on as a backdrop to
commodities are marketed to the public, includ- everyday home life, television programmes and
ing even the selection and presentation of fruit advertisements flow from one to another in a
and vegetables [35]. Yet others describe aesthet- constant state of agitation, every moment a high-
ics as a prime factor in identity construction, light, so that ironically nothing is highlighted and
specifically in terms of an adopted persona [36], everything is the same [42]. An endless flood of
hair styles [37] and what it means to be cool [38]. images simultaneously calms and agitates,
The aestheticisation of everyday life involves worries and comforts.
our extensive exposure to the media, the consumer And also we are bludgeoned. The highly
products we buy, the way people without formal visceral is now used to cut through sensory over-
training in the visual arts organise their environ- load from so many media sources as well as our
ments, and how we all construct our appearance cynicism about the media [43]. Appealing directly
for ourselves and for others. While each of these to the primal, to the nervous system, media
developments has precedents, their extent is as producers compete fiercely to outdo their rivals.
new as their cross-fertilisation is marked. For Visceral explorations of the body in television
example, the mass arts fuel body consciousness programs like the United States CSI series, the
in real life, while ordinary living is conducted by tamer but still gut wrenching British Silent
arranging and rearranging already existing artfully Witness, the movie film genre of splatter films, or
created and marketed consumer products. anorexic models that seem to defy death, shock,
There are numerous other examples of this horrify and repulse.
ordinary language, site-specific use of aesthetics Whether it is through seduction, lulling, anxiety,
to describe visual appearance and how it makes visceral shock or any other felt experience, aesthet-
people feel, far too many to enumerate here. But ics wraps ideas and beliefs that help engender
it is now time to consider why all of this matters. consent. Aesthetics and ideology work hand in
hand, the one folding into the other. Eaton suggests
The power of aesthetics that there may be no pure aesthetic terms for they
It matters because aesthetic experience is power- invariably involve ideas and beliefs which are
ful irrespective of whether it is agreeable or not. always bound to be in contention. She writes, ‘I
That pleasurable aesthetic experience has the would wager most aesthetic terms are “impure”–
power to seduce the rational mind enjoys the most they reflect, even require, beliefs and values:
impressive pedigree. Plato famously thought sincere, suspenseful, sentimental, shallow, subtle,
beauty to be closely allied to the good, though he sexy, sensual, salacious, sordid, sobering, sustain-
seriously feared its power to do harm. Similarly, able, skillful… and that, of course, only scratches
John Adams, the second US President, wrote that the surface of the s words’ [44].
in all societies ‘Beauty… can at any time, overbear’ This position flies in the face of the Kantian
what he called ‘Genius and Virtues’ [39]. tradition, which seeks to separate out aesthetics
Nothing has changed. Higgins writes, ‘beauty from ethics. For Kant aesthetics was self-suffi-
is coercive and manipulative’, and in describing the cient, and one was meant always to adopt
relationship between beauty and sexuality, she towards aesthetic objects an utterly disinterested
writes, ‘Beauty compels’; it is the means to power, stance. But few who followed Kant in other ways
‘the irresistible weapon, the spiritual equivalent of followed him in this. Most have taken their cue
the nuclear bomb’ [40]. Beauty subverts dogma by from Plato’s deep suspicion of beauty and applied
activating the realm of fantasy and imagination… it to all other aesthetic qualities [45]. Aesthetics
[it] knits the mind and body together’ so that our has the power to offer ideas, values and beliefs in

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such a way that even those that are not in one’s empowerment with the market message that 289
best interests are made to seem both attractive empowerment is to be had through consump- Paul Duncum
and in the order of things, to seem natural. Reject- tion. This is a tension played out in numerous
ing ideology is made all the more complicated studies that celebrate the agency of girls [48]
when offered in attractive, pleasurable forms by where it has been necessary to counter the idea
not wishing to reject the accompanying pleasure. of girls as merely passive victims of the media
And when we experience the offering of ideology [49] yet to acknowledge the limits of agency
bodily, whether it is pleasurable or not, when the within consumer society.
experience is literally embodied, subjecting ideol- To many an adult eye the Bratz doll’s large
ogy to critical scrutiny is difficult. This is precisely mouths are pouty, sultry, even collagen-injected;
because the mind/body split is only a figment in their huge eyes are indolent, think-lined, heavy-
the minds of rationalist philosophers like Kant and lidded and glazed. Their tight fitting, revealing
does not compute with actual experience. midriffs and skimpy skirts ensure they are scant-
Aesthetics have been used to support any ily clad and thus trashy, even slutty. Their ensem-
number of political regimes, social causes and ble of features could be called ‘hooker chic’.
economic systems. It is the particular character- Sexual morality is thereby foregrounded, but
istic of our own time that aesthetics is used to Carey shows that class and race are also in play.
support the consumerist aesthetics of designer Of the 30 different dolls on the market, skin
capitalism. In the styling and marketing of serv- colours include dark, tan, deep tan or olive, and all
ices and goods there is now what Postrel calls ‘an the dolls have ethnic names like Fianna, Nevra,
aesthetic imperative’ [46]. Where the price and Kumi and May Lin. The sexual cool of Bratz is
quality of goods are equal, it is aesthetics that interpreted by many middle-class parents as
distinguishes products and makes the difference belonging to the working class with their alleged
between a product’s success or failure. The lack of protective care against the evils of the
aesthetics of our commodity, entertainment world. Bratz are exotic – multicultural, multi-ethnic
culture is not an afterthought; it is a deeply inher- – and also erotic.
ent part of the designer capitalist ideology of At a time when many middle-class parents
continual, full-throttle consumption. feel there now exist significantly more dangers
than in previous generations from which their
Bratz dolls as a case in point children need protection, such parents tend to
Numerous examples can be provided, but Bratz valorise their children as innocents. By combining
dolls offer a convenient example, particularly what appears overt sexuality with minority ethnic-
because Bratz are aimed at one of the main ity and low class associations, the dolls offer a
demographics we teach. Carey’s study shows street-wise, ghetto aesthetic that alarms parents
that since their introduction in 1991, Bratz dolls as much as it appeals to their children as cool.
have revolutionised the US doll market, forcing Bratz manifestly contest the idea that children are
Barbie to the sidelines of every child market innocent. Innocent children have dolls for
except for the very youngest of children [47]. companionship, for mothering and nurture, or
Bratz now dominate the tween market (7–10 year with Barbie for looking and dressing like adults.
olds) to whom they are principally marketed. By contrast, Bratz represent preteens symboli-
Bratz are an especially rich intersection of collid- cally playing out the rebellion of the adolescents
ing values and beliefs, pitting children and adults they are yet to become. Carey argues that while
against one another, crossing and converging Bratz represent innocence corrupted, parents
both traditional class and ethnic divides, and rais- feel powerless in the face of the marketing giants
ing in an especially acute fashion the issue of and peer pressure [50]. Parents see the market-
marketing manipulation verses consumer agency. ing of Bratz dolls as manipulation of their vulner-
Equally, Bratz present the difficulty of reconciling able charges, but despite lingering doubts they
their obvious appeal to tween girls as models of are persuaded to allow the dolls to lie just this

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290 side of acceptability. Walking this line, the brand their agency as curtailed by market conditions
Paul Duncum name Bratz always appears with a hallo above it. [55]. As Taft argues, girl power is now a market
Bratz are little devils, but also angels. strategy, which undercuts the authority of mass-
Meanwhile, marketers stress children’s produced products to deliver real autonomy [56].
agency, claiming that what parents see as sexual Until they grow out of their tween years, girls
promiscuity, children see as simply having atti- have the chance of unlimited identity construc-
tude. Cross sees this as clash between an tion through unlimited consumption. But will they
aesthetic of cute verses an aesthetic of cool [51]. grow out of this ideology, or will it become a
If parents want their children to act cute, meaning fundamental part of their ongoing construction of
to be dependent upon them, children want to be themselves as adults?
cool, to have the right to indulge their own tastes
in ways that define them as separate from their Designer capital
parents. Parents find cute wholly acceptable for jagodzinski makes the point that whereas once
cute children are lively and, while wilful, never less capitalism was founded on desire for goods that
than charming; for children, Bratz are cool partly were for the most part out of one’s reach, and,
because they create anxiety for their parents. therefore, always remained the object of desire,
For girls, shopping has become one of the today, with hugely increased disposable income,
markers of growing maturity [52], and the manu- it is easy to realize one’s desire [57]. He calls this
factures of Bratz encourage such thoughts by ‘designer capitalism’, an economic system based
producing a seemingly infinite number of well- not so much on desire but the drive to satisfy
made and fashionable accessories. As their ever more desire. Meeting one desire immedi-
homepage states, Bratz have a ‘Passion for fash- ately sets up additional desire, and always now
ion’ [53], and with a new line of up-to-the-minute there are new, improved, or just more, goods to
Bratz fashions and accessories released every further evoke desire. Thus designer capitalism is
three months, their tween consumers are encour- based on the drive to create desire rather than
aged to think likewise. The Bratz manufacturer – desire itself.
MGA Entertainment – employs leading designers Aesthetics is central to this shift in the nature
to match the actual market for teen clothes so of capital. No longer is it an optional extra to be
that by buying the latest line of clothes and acces- indulged in once everything really important is
sories girls learn what is trendy and how to dealt with. Whereas once capitalism operated
consume it through their Bratz. primarily in terms of production, nowadays it
Here then is a classic clash between aesthet- functions much more in terms of consumption.
ics and ideology, yet also an example of just how Similarly, where people once identified them-
neatly they are interwoven. A ghetto-cool selves as producers, or workers, today they are
aesthetic that helps tween girls realize in fantasy more likely to identify themselves as consumers
who they are in the process of becoming plays its [58]. Production requires sobriety, thrift and hard
seductive role in perpetuating the market ideol- work – the Protestant virtues – while consump-
ogy of constructing an empowered identify tion requires the activation of desire and a
through consumption. Girls are offered the poten- concomitant loosening of strict moral codes. As
tial opportunity of endlessly constructing and Brown remarks, ‘Products, life and capitalism
reconstructing their identity through endless itself become aestheticized as the manufacture
bouts of consumption. As Godrey argues, the of desire becomes indispensable in the market-
media promote a sense of girls’ agency but, in ing and selling of things… Thus, it is precisely in
conflating feminism with femininity, it actually the production of desire that aesthetics, body/
sponsors attention to fashion and appearance selves, and economics converge [59].
[54]. While stressing girls’ agency is appropriate Sport provides a clear example. No one would
to counter the traditional view of inherent femi- deny the aesthetic pleasure, as Novitz says, of
nine passivity, it is equally necessary to consider the runner or swimmer in terms of ‘smooth, fluid

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motion that suggests effortlessness’ [60]. Yet turn this formulation on its head and to see the 291
Welsch argues that whereas sport was once dreamworlds that now dazzle us in terms of a Paul Duncum
associated with ethics – sport was thought to commodification of fetishes, that is, where some-
build character and discipline the body – now it is thing that is already cut off from the conditions of
part of ‘today’s aestheticization’ where sport has its production is consumed purely for the pleas-
‘become a show for the amusement of the enter- ure of consuming it. Now consuming has become
tainment society’. With ‘the erotic of perfect an end in itself. No longer justified by use value or
bodies foregrounded, performing and exhibiting exchange value, not even by sign value, consum-
have become inseparable’ [61]. For Brown, Wels- erism is self-justifying. Moreover, as Welsch
ch’s observation that sport has moved ‘from the observers, many products are sold through
subjugation to the celebration of the body’ [62] is ‘aesthetic ennoblement’ so that the ‘aesthetic
part of the larger movement from ‘an ascetic aura is then the consumer’s primary acquisition,
orientation to inner bodily desires’ to the ‘pursuit with the article merely incidental’ [67].
of one’s personal pleasures in the realization of a One consequence is that people buy more
self defined through consumption’ [63]. than they need even to help establish their iden-
Consumer society encourages self-indulgence, tity – other than as consumers that is. Thus, one
not self-discipline; desire, not denial; hedonism, of the fastest growing industries in the United
not abstinence – aesthetics, not ascetics. States is the selling of storage space for all those
Following Foucault, Peters makes a similar items people have bought but have no space for
point [64]. He notes that in considering how a in their homes [68]. People have bought into an
society ensures its citizens are kept under control identity that requires continual consumption, and
it was standard during earlier phases of capital- always it is aesthetics that is partly motivating,
ism to invest in the regulatory regimes imposed and sometimes wholly so. Aesthetics stimulates
by hospitals, factories and schools. Each of these desire, and like the Bratz dolls that have a passion
regimes developed internalised as well as exter- for fashion, children are now taught from an early
nal ways to ensure bodily control. However, these age to consume.
controls were ‘heavy, ponderous, meticulous and In a landscape filled with signs and images that
constant’ and from the 1960s on such a ‘cumber- constantly flow uninterrupted and morph seem-
some form of power was no longer indispensa- ingly overnight, the economic and the aesthetic
ble’ [65]. Instead, what developed was the body have become so intertwined it is difficult to say
as a site of desire, the object of narcissism, and which determines the other. For classical Marx-
the constant replay of commodity fetish that one ism the issue was simple: aesthetic considera-
finds in contemporary fashion, in various forms of tions were determined by what the economy
the consumption of the body, and in the seem- would allow. Today, the economy is driven as
ingly endless forms of self-fashioning promised much by aesthetic considerations as anything
through diet, exercise, sport and medical proce- else. With the packing and styling of products,
dures that all have come to mark neoliberal forms along with a host of cross-media promotional
of body subjectivity under late capitalism [66]. images all intended to stimulate desire, aesthet-
With this shift of emphasis in the capitalist ics has become indispensable to the capitalist
cycle of production to consumption comes the cycle. If in an earlier period of capitalism, aesthet-
need for new ways to understand what is happen- ics was a last thought, the icing on the cake, the
ing. In emphasizing production, Marx had focused decorative but non-essential cheery on top, it is
on the tendency to fetishise commodities; where now central to the entire capitalist enterprise. So
products are consumed under conditions influential has consumerism become that both
divorced from their manufacture, they are, with advocacy of social policies and political campaigns
the help of advertising and promotion, associated have become aestheticized [69], causing, for
with beliefs and values they do not inherently example, Welsch to complain of ‘sugar coating
have. Brown argues that it is now necessary to the real with aesthetic flair’ where ‘the cosmetics

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292 of reality’ have become a central element in ‘an immediate situation, or a privileged indifference
Paul Duncum expanding culture of festivals and fun’ [70]. to the human process as a whole [72].
The centrality of aesthetics is seen in many of
the examples provided earlier, in the identities Under the influence of Modernist aesthetics, art
telegraphed through hairstyle, in the display of educators have for too long ignored the immedi-
male as well as female bodies, and in the routine ate situations of their students. I recommend
use of surgery to enhance the bodies nature that an understanding of aesthetics as site-
provided us. When sport has become a display of specific visual appearance and effects can lead
ideal bodies, when our cynicism and sensory over- art educators to ask important questions. What
load is penetrated by the visceral, when we organ- Carey did provides a starting point [73]. When
ise our personal environments with the numerous she asked both her students and their parents
already aesthetically fashioned products now about Bratz dolls, she discovered far more
available, when even vegetables are aesthetised in complex and nuanced views than were available
supermarkets, there can be no doubt that we have to her alone. Yet as educators we need to go
taken an aesthetic turn. When children are seduced further. Understanding the complexity of the
by an edgy, exotic aesthetic to construct their iden- issues is only a first step; as educators we have
tity through continual consumption, who can the responsibility to intervene, and like the
doubt that aesthetics is central to life? numerous products of designer capital Bratz
offer pedagogic opportunities.
Consumer aesthetics and art education I recommend beginning by asking questions
A culture of consumer aesthetics and a view of art of the girls who own or desire to own Bratz dolls,
education as a civil or moral responsibility are invar- not to shame them, but to open up the possibility
iably at odds. In understanding this Connor usefully of the girls working through the dilemmas of
distinguishes between a hedonist verses a moral- designer capital at the subjective level they are
ist approach to culture [71]. Where hedonists experienced. Questions could include: What do
equate value with aesthetic pleasure, a moralistic the dolls mean to you? What is their appeal? Do
position equates value with an emphasis on ideas, you know anyone who looks like this? Do you
beliefs and values. Those who see art education as want to look like this? Why do you think the
a vehicle for social reconstruction will tend to makers of Bratz dolls made them look like this?
adopt a moralist position, but I suggest they should Are they cool? What makes them seem cool?
never forget the hedonistic means by which all What words would you use to describe them
visual culture operate. Those who tend toward a other than cool? Does looking like they do mean
hedonistic position equally need to remember that that you play with the dolls in a certain way? Is
all visual imagery inherently embodies ideas, there Bratz doll behaviour? Should younger chil-
beliefs and values about which we might at times dren be allowed to play with them? Are some
wish to object. A holistic or balanced approach will people like the dolls or are Bratz just dolls? Does
concede the legitimacy of both positions – hedon- anyone look like the Bratz in the media? Such
ism and morality, aesthetics and ideology – where questions could animate activities such as look-
pleasure is viewed as self-justifying, but also a ing through magazines to find celebrities that
primary means of inculcating ideology. In words echo the dolls as well as searching through
Plato might have approved – ever the moralist he images from the past – including the Masters –
could also appreciate beauty –Williams writes that that were considered fashionable at the time.
aesthetics offers And then I would recommend addressing the
issues of designer capital directly. While acknowl-
at times an intense and irreplaceable experience edge that collecting and playing with Bratz
in which fundamental human process[es] are provides pleasure – is fun – ask whether the value
directly stimulated, reinforced or extended; at of a person is really a matter of what they appear
times at a different extreme, an evasion of [the] like on the outside – their makeup, their clothes,

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they way they position their bodies – or what they 8. Felski, R. (2005) The Role of Aesthetics in 293
have inside? And do the girls think being happy, Cultural Studies, in Bérube, M. [Ed.] The Paul Duncum
being fulfilled, is mainly a matter of possessing Aesthetics of Cultural Studies. Malden, MA:
things, particularly lots of things, or primarily a Blackwell, pp. 28–43.
matter of how they feel about themselves? Is
9. Eagleton, T. op. cit.
self-worth a matter of possessing goods, or what
one can achieve, or qualities like kindness, gener- 10. See Rose, G. (2001) Visual Methodologies:
osity and love? Without denying children the An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual
opportunity to find pleasure in constructing iden- Materials. London: Sage. In this otherwise
tities for themselves through the visual appeal of comprehensive book on approaches to visual
consumer goods, it is central to the art educa- imagery, the word ‘aesthetics’ does not even
tional task to offer alternatives. appear in the index.

11. Bérube, M. op. cit.

References 12. Williams, R. (1977) Marxism and Literature.
1. Eagleton, T. (1990) The Ideology of the Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aesthetic. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
13. Hoggart, cited in Felski, R. op. cit., p. 33.
2. Williams, R. (1976) Keywords: A Vocabulary of
14. Ibid., pp. 33–4.
Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University
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48. See, for example, Butler, J. (1999) Gender 61. Welsch, W. (2005) Sport Viewed Aesthetically 295
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