Chapter 39 Roberta Sassatelli 4 THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF DISCIPLINE Keep-fit culture and its values From R. Sassatelli (2000) ‘The commercialization of discipline: keep-fit culture and its values’, translated by Anne Collins, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 5(3): 396-411. (-l Natural plasticity ESPITE THE EMPHASIS ON PHYSICAL efficiency and individual choice, despite its proclaimed pluralistic attitude to body shape, the legitimation of the gym is bound to a strong normative vision. First of all, the ideal of fitness calls into play the idea of ‘nature’ and is based on specific notion of how the body can be transformed in a ‘natural’ way. conclusion, it should be noted that the body you get by absolute plasticity. The body's plasticity is ‘to complete a rogramme. Only al284 ROBERTA SASS. her deal body isan illusion: ‘I would like to have a figure like Anna Falchi, yoq iy Jr ideal body is an illusio yy things you'll get there, like dieting, exercising and using Crean nh tt Be warps on't have the right build. For me it’s difficult to nea ores feet wide hips and thick ankles". Yet Loretta is satisfied with qe use of my Fram because of my fram hat ‘impossible” body which still atracts her, but he not because it has given her ; beg she has obtained a better body: ‘you make the most of what you've go gn, ase by You and your energy All tis is crucial because there are many other commercially aailable was of tay forming your body. New transformation techniques, from plastic surgery to hormag, therapy, are among the many possibilities open to individuals. In fact, in our cult a body plasticity beyond fitness exists and is, so to speak, legitimized by mediation oft market, Even for fitness enthusiasts, absolute plasticity is a potent utopia which induce, discomfort and curiosity at the same time. Fitness participants are thereby forere: ‘engaged in defining the ‘right’ boundaries for body plasticity and they appear to « the basis of what they have learnt in the gym. This may be why, during intery were so quick and keen to emphasize that the cha specific. Mentioning the possible alternatives to the terviewed immediately indicated some other way of “exercising’, from ‘country walks’, to ‘swimming’, ‘cycling’, ‘tennis’ and ‘jogging’; massage’, ‘hydromas sage’ or ‘creams’, but only when repeatedly solicited did they discuss more invasive techniques which, however, they adamantly rejected. Ina way which may give rise to contradictions and is based on an unstable . gyms draw clients towards the idea that the body, though plastic, has a plasticity limit defined by each person's ability to work on his or her own body. The people | interviewed were very critical of commercially widespread “invasive” techniques like plastic surgery, Plastic surgery, most of them claimed, changes your body directly, but in. an‘ way, without making it work, without exploiting its intrinsic capaci clashes with fitness, Even a young woman worried about her that she ‘doesn’t trust’ the scalpel: ‘I wouldn't like to lo $0 on are as you are, I can’t understand it! It’ fil mako-ap con hcp tak how you were before. With surgery you can’t’. if pay; There are manuals that liken exercising to ‘nat repressive’ treatment that only ‘tends to eliminate the symptoms find training in the gym ‘natural’ in that it fits in with the body ‘as it siast like Alessia, a 30-year-old post office worker, explains for exé make your body ‘act directly’, ‘not control it with drugs or other because in the end no other way works. With surgery, she added, ‘you can have pulled up as much as you like, but it will still sag again: then you're worse off ths "massage machines ... are no use whatsoever’, i anything ‘they are really bad | you"; they have made some pe: -ople “feel ill and throw up’; with massage "you feel goo there and then ... but afterwards your body doesn’t really feel better, you haven't got of your nerves and you may ¢ « than you did before’; with make-up ‘you look better’, but your skin “isn't oxyg It is because the gym exploits. the body's ‘true’ characteristics that it can produce a ‘truc’ transformation, Techniques’ which clash with exercising may be admissible, but are destined to fail; they don’t give people what they want because their bodies cither rebel or are not even affected. en find it harder to go upst: ate Absolute plasticity is also perceived as morally not only rational, exact and effective, it is also right, ssed by Callan Pickney, an American trainer who has made a fortune all over the world — and whose manuals are widely circulated in Italy too. She writes that physical exercise — becomes part of our lives when and because ‘nature needs a push’ and that only we eam Stake our lives in our hands’, ‘stop complaini _Feeourse to the notion of nature also underlies a moral justification, Elisa, a young. ‘want to appear ‘vain’, helps us to understand this point. ‘Impro *, she explains, is not vanity’ if itis the fruit of peel " SR licens, being careful what you do with your body". ls echo the majority of clients: exercise is natural since city for changes. Training, they claim, changes te5 The practices and dis and the Ponclin of physical efficiency m regulate an ageing population, but they are of and services. More and more often, care fo mercial facilities like fitness gyms and by practices free choice on the market and on themselves. A critical assessmer ng from this Italian study must start with commercial culture, Even though it would be simplistic to say that clients are di a rational choice, it is nonetheless important to recall that as commercial cannot to without the notion of choice, For their very social legitimacy, today’s gyms to need to depict those who frequent them as clients, consumers, that is, subjects able decide their preferences autonomously. Voluntary attendance at a gym is therefore accom panied by a strong emphasis on the Yet unlike what is broadly claimed by ritics and supporters of commercial culture, individualism is expressed, at least in’ Italian gyms I investigated, not in total freedom, but within the confines of res and sell-control In turn, this seems to break away from the postmodern paradigm of absolute plasticity with commercial culture and which sees indi Niduals intent on transforming their bodies, solely concerned with pleasing others and indiscriminately greedy for everything which will serve the purpose (Bordo 1993), Instead, today’s gym seems to b ion of another, perhaps older commercial culture — certainly a less permissive and indulgent one. Fitness enthusiasts are not imply invited to choose the body they prefer, but to work diligently and, as it were, with hum- ble determination, towards their own goals, in short to choose to discipline themselves. Likewise, as we have seen, clients tend to justify their preference for gyms in relation to the twofold desire to use their bodies to the full and not to be unnatural, # dividus the notion of choice and that special form of body ~ self feal of modern disciplinary techniques for which better self-control is obtained not ication of the Mesh, but by controlled stimulation ofits capabilites, sme an important si ader 1991; White etal, 1995-FIT CULTURE AND ITS VALUES 287 eminism, Western Culture and the Body, Berkeley: University ging and the pursuit of the moral life’, Journal of 369-87. and thex postmodern self’, Journal of Health Behaviour, 30: ufficiency and the new strenuosity sport 5) ‘Bodywork as a moral imperative. Some critical r et Société, 18(1): 159-81