Rappresentazioni e implicazioni sociologiche della deformità in Elephant Man di David Lynch

Journal title SALUTE E SOCIETÀ
Author/s Antonio Rafele, Guerino Bovalino
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2020/2 Language Italian
Pages 12 P. 44-55 File size 148 KB
DOI 10.3280/SES2020-002004
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

In a convergence between sociology of media and visual studies, this paper proposes an inquiryon the representation of deformity in Elephant Man, and shows in conclusion the significantvariations that two current objects of the present imagery, the pornography and thevirtual reality, make on the subject. If in the cinema of the eighties, the deformity is still fullyassociated with the definition of a social norm, in a persistent and ambiguous dialecticbetween scene and off scene, in the most recent images of consumption, the deformed occupiesthe center of the scene becoming the principle of aesthetic experience. This polarity,studied in its narrative forms and its sociological implications, constitutes the reflexive centreof this article.

Keywords: Cinema; deformity; nature; media; image; myth.

  1. Abruzzese A. (2006). L’occhio di Joker. Cinema e modernità. Roma: Carocci.
  2. Abruzzese A. (2015). Punto zero. Il crepuscolo dei barbari. Roma: Sossella.
  3. Belting H. (2001). Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft. München: Fink.
  4. Benjamin W. (1983). Das Passagen-Werk. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  5. Benjamin W. (1996). Zur Kritik der Gewalt. In Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. II.1. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  6. Byung-chul H. (2013). Digitale Rationalität und das Ende des kommunikativen Handelns. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz.
  7. Byung-chul H. (2016). Die Austreibung des Anderen: Gesellschaft, Wahrnehmung und Kommunikation heute. Frankfurt: Fischer.
  8. Calleja G. (2011). In-Game. From Immersion to Incorporation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  9. Codeluppi V. (2000). Lo spettacolo della merce: i luoghi del consumo dai passages a Disney World. Milano: Bompiani.
  10. Codeluppi V. (2013). Mostri. Dracula, King Kong, Alien, Twilight e altre figure dell'immaginario. Milano: Franco Angeli.
  11. Costa A. (2002). Il cinema e le arti visive. Torino: Einaudi.
  12. Crary J. (2000). Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle and Modern Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  13. Durand G. (1960). Les structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire. Grenoble: Allier.
  14. Hansen M. B. N. (2007). Bodies in Code: Interfaces with Digital Media. New York: Routledge.
  15. Illouz E. (2008). Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  16. McLuhan M. (1964). Understanding media. New York: McGraw Hill.
  17. Mogk M. E. (2013). Different bodies. Essays on disability in film and television. Jefferson: McFarland Publisher.
  18. Morton T. (2007). Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
  19. Morton T. (2013). Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
  20. Norden M. F. (1994). The cinema of isolation: A history of physical disability in the movies. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
  21. Peters J. D. (1999). Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  22. Sontag S. (1978). Illness as Metaphor. New York: Macmillan Publishers.
  23. Williams L. (2004). Porn studies. Durham: Duke University Press.

Antonio Rafele, Guerino Bovalino, Rappresentazioni e implicazioni sociologiche della deformità in Elephant Man di David Lynch in "SALUTE E SOCIETÀ" 2/2020, pp 44-55, DOI: 10.3280/SES2020-002004