Perfume, Violence, and Symbolic Sacrifice

This article firstly analyzes a practical exercise of re-staging iconic violent images through actors and discusses the bodily reactions to being exposed to violent images. The article then presents a theoretical framework to understand the notion of the body as symbolic sacrifice. The text brings together these two notions (effects of violent images and symbolic sacrifice) and discusses the violence inherent in advertising images. Lastly, it claim that the clothing and perfume advertising industry, through the display of violence, attempts to commodify the sacrificed body.