I reckon it could be fun for some of you to read my essay on aspects of the British society in regards to myths, religion and society. Maybe its a bit far fetched but I had fun writing it and I still wonder how the teachers in the anthropology department of Goldsmiths are looking when reading and marking it! Haha…
(There might be some grammatical or spelling mistakes here and there!)
Introduction
Around the 7th century before the Christian Era, anonymous authors wrote down The Book of Genesis: In primeval history, it was said, that the first two human beings on earth was Adam and Eve and that these two people gave birth to Cain, Abel, Seth et al. who later on populated the earth. Yet, before getting children, they lived together in the Garden of Eden among animals, plants and God’s other creations. Their lives are often depicted as quite simple without too many obligations. Nonetheless, God forbid Adam and Eve from eating the apples of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, warning that they would die if they did so - but as the human beings they were, they could not resist the temptation, and Eve got underway in eating the forbidden fruit. She gave the fruit to Adam as well and the consequence is told to be the awareness of their inappropriate nakedness. When God saw the clothes they had made for themselves as a result of the forbidden knowledge, he knew they have disobeyed his command and therefore expelled them from the garden.
The story about Adam and Eve can be seen as the kick-off to what has become one of today’s major issues, affairs, subjects and anthropological focuses; public and cultural symbols, control and status measurements especially found through clothing. The human body was interesting from the very beginning of humankind, though attired in clothes it became absorbing. Clothing and later on fashion became a tool preventing people to look like each other; separating ‘us’ from ‘them’ or vice versa for that matter. People are branded and grouped in terms of what they wear and how they are interpreted by others; it is ‘the endless process through which the body is decoded and recorded’ as Conner writes (1997 p. 216).
Modern Ages
Peter Stromberg writes in his essay on the ideology of American consumerism about a ‘happier, more comprehensible, and more exciting’ (1990 p. 11) so-called ‘second world’ that you only can find, in the beliefs on consumerism through advertising: By buying X, your life will change. Adam and Eve’s lives changed when they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and why did they get kicked out? By trying to enter this afore mentioned ‘second world’, as they got tempted by something others experienced.
Today the ‘second world’ represents more than just what we can buy, it also represents the lives of celebrities. You can compare Adam and Eve to Britain’s favourites; David and Victoria Beckham. Both deities or supreme beings of their time, functioning as style icons through their specific self-expression and their somewhat naïve growth that made them eager to discover the unknown world. In both situations, one or both were tempted by something they did not know about or supposedly never would become part of. David and Victoria Beckham both became public hotshots even though their family and economical background indicated something else. David Graeber implies, when writing about theories of value; ‘some things move from meaning to desire’ (2001 p. 21). With this he highlights the idea of; its not how good you are, but how good you want to be, as the main evidence on the experience of the values behind the ‘second world’.
A culture includes some sort of body of symbolic material out of which myths and rituals are created, and in this case the symbolic material is clothing and fashion which eventually becomes part of the myth of the ‘second world’ i.e. the life many are hungering for and what many anthropologists has been studying in various societies. Adam and Eve as well as David and Victoria Beckham is both made into supernatural beings through a projection of their image, and one can argue that the British religion is, equivalent to Stromberg’s analysis of the American, based on these supernatural celebrities and as a result of consumerism become the creation of a supreme being; a Deity. And if ‘culture is shaped by the behaviour of individuals who have widely ranging temperaments and definite sense of unique identities’ (Keesing, M & Strather, A. 1998 p. 64) the supernatural beings have reached a public status and image earlier only seen in more solemn and ceremonial perspectives.
In a more detailed description of the primeval story compared to today’s examples, Adam is considered a prophet in Islamic and Mormon faiths (to name a few). He is mostly depicted as a muscled white male only wearing little if any clothes (depending on time; after eating the forbidden fruit he wore fig leaves). God decided Adam should have a female companion with similar attributes; white, somewhat slender, wearing little if any clothes (again depending on time).
Now, take the white muscled David Beckham. He is considered ‘worshipped’ by men and women in the western world as his football skills as well as appearance is superior to the ‘norm’. He is often portrayed in tabloids, advertisings and in gossip magazines wearing little if any clothes. David Beckham is married to Victoria Beckham, who is, as well as Eve, white, slender and almost always pictured in wearing little if any clothes (and if in clothes, always quite expensive and fashionable). In relation to Adam end Eve’s fig leaves and Mr and Mrs Beckham’s expensive and fashionable clothes both used as a cultural and social image, one can argue that the expression ‘in full fig’ (i.e. smart clothes) originate from the use of fig leaves used by Adam and Eve - and not a variant of the obsolete term ‘feague’ which means liven up. This discussion must be delayed a little longer, however.
Yet, the highest resemblance is found when looking at their ‘worlds’. The Beckham’s came from the ‘first world’ where money, fame and social respect was something you only dreamt of. East London or Essex was never part of the areas or social clientele of the posh life where champagne, expensive dresses, celebrities and money dominated. Nonetheless, they became part of what people like ‘them’ only could wish for: Living the sweet life among actors and actresses in blissful and famous Hollywood where Essex and east London never would be mentioned. Similar to that, Adam and Eve lived the immortal lives in The Garden of Eden where life was sweet as a fairytale and any heavy obligations were synonymous with relaxing and enjoying life. Their life changed dramatically after disobeying God’s words, and they became part of the ‘normal’ life where mortality and sins functioned as everyday factors. The fact is, however, that both the Beckham’s and Adam & Eve ‘are the ones who participate in two worlds, the world we all live in and the world we all aspire to.’ (Stromberg. 1990 p. 17). Since they have lived and experienced both, people regard them as being superior in some way or another. They have been where you have, but look where they are now or have been! In that way the Beckham’s function as the evidence of everybody being able to become transformed into supreme beings through success, consumption (especially to increase individual looks/ image) and a fortunate faith.
Myths and Deities
With supreme beings on my mind, this brings me to the idea of a myth, and especially the myth about George Washington described (somewhat whimsically) by Dorothea Wender. Wender argues that George Washington never existed as his whole life seemed like a set of myths and metaphors for the American society’s establishment and foundation not only made by one man (1985 p. 336-341). The same can be applied to Mr and Mrs Beckham I believe. The modern day fairytale of Prince meeting Princess and them living a very public life in the media is just too far fetched to possibly be real, anthropologists (and others) can argue.
It is probably important to know what I mean by a myth, and how I will use the term in relation to the Beckham’s life and living. A myth is in general a term used to describe something or someone related to impossibilities. By including impossibilities in the definition, myth is an expression that gives nonsense or uncertainty a history. Often used in fairytales depicting medieval times, a myth uses its unreliability to create an impossible meaning through time and space. This is why Dorothea Wender can apply it to the unknown factors of George Washington and how he founded the United States of America. However, it is also why the idea of a myth can be used as a theory when looking at David and Victoria Beckham - and especially when studying their fame. As with George Washington, their lives or even status seems irrelevant. The society is highly based on having people like these and therefore only would find somebody else to recognize as the supreme beings in cultural matters; if it wasn’t for Washington I guess Jefferson or Adams would have taken the part in history, as you see Katie Price (Jordan) and Peter Andrè is doing in Britain after Mr and Mrs Beckham immigrated to the United States. As long as style icons or idols has a central role in capitalism and consumerism, I believe the world will always need figures like these to function as the representation of something ideological or part of the ‘second world’. This is again where we find the myth argument! David and Victoria Beckham are functioning as idols or as icons representing the ‘second world’. But if this ‘second world’ only exist as an explanation to the unknown, the fairytales of modern times and expressions of something uncertain shows the Beckham fairytale is a myth. It might be the whole idea of celebrities that can be argued to have a sense of nonsense, and when described giving it all a sense of mythological ‘meaning’. Their fame is seen as the ultimate point of their success and their lives as the complete bliss in what couples and people search for in societies where consumerism and capitalism almost regulate the social control. Only through the afore mentioned projection, their lives has become of somewhat supernatural beings, depicted as and compared to old myths such as the Adam and Eve story. Another religious belief such as the Virgin Mary and Jesus myth could also do in this relation – Virgin Mary as Victoria and David as Jesus. In each instance the person comes from nothing and is through projection made into a saviour; a Deity. Victoria and David Beckham can be argued to be the modern version of our image of the perfect man and woman – as Adam and Eva or Mary and Jesus was and is regarded as by many and most. Let me create a dichotomy to give a better understanding:
Victoria - David
Female - Male
Pop singer (soft (vagina)) - Footballer (hard (penis))
Animal Protection - UNICEF Aid
Skin cream advertisements - Shaving advertisements
Slim but curved (culture) - Muscled (nature)
Conclusion
To sum this whole paper up, I believe it is necessary to conclude that these couples were and are one. I mean, without the other part these people would be of no real significance. Adam would still be immortal and walk around naked in The Garden of Eden. Virgin Mary would be the poor wife of Joseph living in Nazareth. And lastly, David Beckham would just be another footballer, maybe living and working in the cold and grey area of Manchester. As Wender concludes in her study of Washington and as I will do in mine about the Beckhams in relation to more religious examples, they seem as ‘an unusually good example of pure myth, untainted by the chancy quirks of history’ (1985 p. 342).
