Makeovers
Channel: LIVING SOCIOLOGY
Date: 2019-12-04

First Person, Plural on CFUV-fm, Victoria, BC 
Originally aired June 22, 2002

Canadian-born sociologist, Erving Goffman, examined the ways in which we manage the impressions we make upon each other in his now-classic book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, first published in 1956. While Goffman did not directly address the ways in which the body is adorned in order to make an impression, he did touch upon the body as that part of the self, which is engaged in creating an impression, in managing the reactions of others to one's self: "There will be a back region with its tools for shaping the body, and a front region with its fixed props. … The self is a product of all of these arrangements, and in all of its parts bears the marks of this genesis." One such social establishment that acts a back region for many in their impression management is the hair salon. The old slogan, "only your hairdresser knows for sure" suggests the secret-keeping region that Goffman describes in his book. We spoke with David, owner and operator of David Scizzorhandz about hair, salons and helping people create the impressions they want to make on others. To cut is short, we got sociological about hair.

The movie The Associate takes makeovers to the extreme when Whoopi Goldberg turns herself into a white male in order to get ahead on Wall Street.  This comedy of the absurd is a meditation on how assigned roles of race and gender interact with acquired roles of education and work identities to either support or work against our goals in our interactions with others.  Negotiating these complex role conflicts involves impression management, sometimes to the extreme measures of pretending to be something we are not.  To pull off these impressions we need props and confidants.  There is a materialistic aspect of image making.

Image management is a specific part of the impression management that we engage in our everyday lives.  This is true even when the image we want to create is a presentation of our "true selves."  We consider some of the different aspects of image management, including the question how does a punker manage the impression that he doesn't care what impression he makes.

copyright: Carl Wilkerson and Pattie Thomas

http://sociologylegacy.pbworks.com/w/page/93413726/Episode%2008%20Makeovers