What Satisfies?

 

Jesse Ernst

3/16/21

GEOG 101

What Satisfies?

Eaters and the Eaten (Berger) illustrated how different classes of people eat in entirely different ways and for different reasons.  The bourgeois people are the wealthiest of the upper class, and the peasants are a people group described as those who have very little and seem to be always in survival mode.  People are inherently selfish, and this can be seen clearly when you compare these two classes, for they are “brute contrast between plenty and scarcity” (Berger, p. 370).  There are often the haves and the have nots, in these functional regions. The distinction is not shown by the “hungry and the overfed, but between two traditional views of the value of food… and the act of eating” (Berger, p. 370).

At the peasant’s table a person uses what they have.  Utensils are scarce and no one makes a big deal of it if you have to use the same cup or plate for every meal; often knives and plates are shared.  Food directly “represents physical work” (Berger, p. 371), and people cook what they eat, often in the same room.  The peasant’s life is a “rhythm” (Berger, p. 373) and if he feasts, it is to celebrate a memorable moment; whether the meal is small or great, it is cherished.  

The bourgeois thinks entirely differently about every part of a meal.  They always overeat, never have two types of food on the same plate, and surely never share any utensils and plates.  They often enhance the meal performance, not for the nourishment of the food, but for the “theatrical invitation” (Berger, p. 372) or a fantasy ritual.

In the article The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity, Susan Bordo gives insight on what the popular culture has done to the woman’s body and how women across the globe have become infatuated with the concept of “self modification” (p. 166).  She points out how the burden and constant pressure of “normalizing disciplines of diet, makeup, and dress” (Bordo, p. 166), pushed women into a corner where they felt they could barely live. “At the farthest extremes, the practices of femininity may lead us to utter demoralization, debilitation, and death” (Bordo, p. 166) as evidenced by disorders.  Bordo focuses on an analysis of three disorders women have been susceptible to because of gender oppression.  These three are hysteria, agoraphobia, and anorexia nervosa.   As I was reading this article, my mind thought of the popular 007 movies throughout the years and what the women were stereotyped to be.  This popular culture as seen mostly through social media, magazines, and tv “tells us what clothes, body shape, facial expression, movements, and behavior are required” (Bordo, p.170).

Both articles are similar to each other because the authors looked at the relationship between people and food; however, I think there is a deeper truth.  Culture and people are controlled by people of influence, and those that have that kind of power are separated into two groups: government and popular culture.  These two, whether mixed together or separate, demonstrate a controlling power that is hard to define or pinpoint the exact source; however, the casualties are clearly seen in the ruined lives they leave behind.