Social Drama in the Spectacle of Femininity: The Performance of Weight Loss in the Weight Watchers' Program

Abstract

In this essay I examine the cultural performance of femininity as performed during women's transformation of body size. The agonistic experience that weight-conscious women confront is explicated through Victor Turner's model for social drama. In particular, the performance of weight loss by female members of the Weight Watcher's program—a program which by its very name acknowledges the implicit surveillance that overweight women experience—is explored. I argue that performance techniques are used by Weight Watchers to facilitate the transformation necessary for a new performance of self. Finally, I argue that the intransigence of cultural standards of feminine beauty render the final phase of Turner's model inadequate for examining phenomena pertaining to women and weight loss.