The Ephemeral Body: A Luxury Death

Anorexia responds to a paradigm espoused by multinational pharmaceutical corporations, the fashion and beauty industries, and companies that make all kinds of diet products. The process of producing brand fashion begins in clandestine factories that hire women at slave wages and ends in catwalks that hire slaves who pay with their death.
Author: Diana Raznovich / Performer: Pía Uribelarrea / Video: Lidia
Milani / Wardrobe consultant: Delia Cancela / Staging consultant: Marga Borga.

For photos and video click here
http://hemi.nyu.edu/eng/seminar/2007/eng/perf_dianaraznovich_eng.html

Synopsis:

Mariana, a heavy-set woman who works in a gallery, recounts as she hangs the arts works how she entered a beauty contest—From Fat to Free. 500 women showed up under the eye of a Dr. Mejia, who promises Mariana a new identity, Fatty #407, and offers her the opportunity to transform her life and become an international star. She enters the Laboratory, Dying for a better life, with her new mantra: To eat is to fail, to betray. Mariana describes how the doctors examine and photograph her. “I felt very bad, but it’s all part of feeling good,” she says. They were fascinated by her measurements and, thus, she thought by her. They asked her to sign a form, accepting full responsibility for the outcome. “Our failure is your failure, you understand?” But the voice was very seductive. “We will do everything to you. Everything. You will never forget us, Your life will be before and after. Sign here, darling. And she signed. She signed everything. Everywhere. From that moment on, Fatty # 407 was in their hands. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Mariana recalls that her children didn’t want her to do it. Her husband said she should do what she wanted.



The daily routine was simple:

Look in the mirror and recite: I hate myself I can’t stand myself I am an embarrassment...

Take products: 3 tbs. Get Thin Quick; 3 glasses Fast Acting Slim; 4 Express Laxatives

Exercise in Fat Free Machine



Mariana developed skin lesions. Her husband left her. “Fat’s ok,” he said, “but fat with lesions, no way.”

She spent more and more time in the bathroom. The Drs. worried—no interviews! No friends! No nothing!



“You ate too much lettuce yesterday, Fatty 407! How many calories in lettuce?”

Me: 18 more or less.

“There is no more or less! Precision. Scientifically, a calorie is a calorie!”

Dr. Himmel gave her 5 pills; 3 for the hips, 2 for the thighs…. “Lie down!”

“There was no time to lie down. I fainted, catatonic, livid, drugged…. Who knows what was in those pills. They said she had suffered a mild heart attack—nothing important. Routine.” They said: “Don’t even think about suing us. It costs money…. Besides, we are the vehicle for your salvation.



I left, and ran and ran—I left light, floating… People stepped aside. Go! Go! You’ll make it! I felt something like happiness. I ran and ran like a comet, that leaves a trail of sadness.



Now Mariana has a job, hanging art works. She makes sure they are straight and asks the audience to do the same. She sighs: “Enough, enough, enough….”





Captions Comics….

1. The diet industry is the third largest in the world.

2. FATTIESSSSSSSSSSS

3. The multimillion dollar diet industry is only comparable to the military industry.

4. The global industry of women objects, of women designed to consume products

Anti-aging

Anti-cellulite

Anti-liposity

Anti-personality

Women all alike, skin and bones, adolescent bodies forever, armies of women reduced to a regimen of liposuction …..

5. Lipsosuck all

6. The famous ‘Slimming Project” is a global plan to foment a flowering business

7.

8. “We control your weight we control your desire we control your body we control your ideas we control your control.”

9. “We have to keep operating. She still has a mind of her own!”

10. Meat grinder, Everything grinder

11. My mouth was designed by a German specialist, my nose was trimmed in Spain, I bought my tits in Miami, my eyes were widened by a Brazilian surgeon, I had my skin color changed in a Swiss Lab, and my brain was washed in the Publicity Agency I work for in Buenos Aires.

12. Lock & Diet—a method that triumphed in the U.S., available now all throughout Latin America! www.lock&diet.com

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