Torture and dismemberment are means by which allegory re-signs the body because parts of bodies are more useful emblems than whole, living bodies. In the Arcades Project, Benjamin develops further the deep kinship between allegory and fashion that Glamorama brings to an extreme conclusion. Only through death may the body enter the domain of pure fashion. To demonstrate this, Glamorama offers stylized tableaux of fashion and torture perpetrated by models who fail to recognize a difference. Objects exchange traits with other objects, caught in the leveling whirl of death.
Body parts are modifiable, detachable, and interchangeable.
Fetishistic or emblematic tattoos mark bodies that may be dismembered at any moment. Party chatter revolves around clothes and bodies, as characters compliment each other's eyebrows and arm veins. Tortured and dead bodies look inauthentic, like props or wax anatomical dummies, and the characters remind each other of automatons, dolls, and puppets. Gyms double as torture chambers, and sex is coldly gymnastic. Clearly, Ellis is exploring territories charted long ago by J.G. Ballard and Andy Warhol.