The commodification of celebrities’ bodies is a deeply entrenched cultural phenomenon that reflects broader societal dynamics of gender, power, and consumer capitalism. Over the decades, the female body in particular has been subjected to relentless scrutiny, shaping, and repackaging in media and popular culture. This process is not merely about aesthetics or personal choice but is bound up with complex intersections of fame, marketability, and ideological control. Suzanne Somers’s career trajectory—from sitcom actress to fitness icon and wellness entrepreneur—offers a compelling case study into how women’s bodies become both literal and symbolic commodities. Her role in promoting products like the ThighMaster and anti-aging treatments exemplifies the cyclical ways in which female bodies are commodified within capitalist media frameworks, often under the guise of empowerment.
This article critically analyzes the commodification of celebrity bodies through a feminist and media-critical lens, tracing the evolution of this phenomenon from the Golden Age of Hollywood to the contemporary influencer culture. Drawing on feminist scholarship from thinkers like bell hooks, Susan Bordo, and Rosalind Gill, it interrogates how cultural iconography shapes and constrains female body autonomy, transforming bodies into objects of consumer desire, spectacle, and control.
Table of Contents
The Historical Context of Celebrity Body Commodification
The practice of commodifying celebrity bodies is not new; it has roots in the early 20th century when Hollywood’s studio system manufactured star images to fit specific archetypes. Female stars like Marilyn Monroe embodied the idealized “sex symbol,” their bodies shaped and packaged to appeal to heteronormative male desire and capitalist consumption. According to Susan Bordo’s seminal work Unbearable Weight, the female body in media has historically functioned as a site for projecting cultural anxieties about femininity, sexuality, and control (Bordo, 1993). Monroe’s image was carefully crafted to embody innocence and eroticism simultaneously, revealing how the female body is deployed as both an object of admiration and a commodity for profit.
The commodification process entrenched rigid beauty standards, often excluding women who aged or diverged from these norms. The tension between youthfulness and desirability became a persistent theme in celebrity culture, reinforcing patriarchal values that define female worth in visual terms. This dynamic continued through the 1960s and 1970s, as stars like Jane Fonda embodied evolving notions of fitness and health but still navigated a media landscape fixated on physical appearance.
Suzanne Somers: A Case Study in Cyclical Commodification
Suzanne Somers’s career encapsulates these dynamics of body commodification and the shifting roles women’s bodies play in media and consumer culture. Initially famous for her role on Three’s Company in the 1970s, Somers was often cast for her physical appeal, reflecting the era’s emphasis on sexualized female bodies in television. Yet her subsequent reinvention as a fitness and wellness entrepreneur in the 1990s—most notably through the marketing of the ThighMaster—highlights how female celebrities leverage their bodies as brands.
The ThighMaster became a cultural phenomenon, selling millions of units and cementing Somers’s status not just as an actress but as a symbol of fitness and anti-aging. This shift aligns with Rosalind Gill’s analysis in Gender and the Media, which emphasizes how women’s bodies are increasingly framed within neoliberal discourses of self-improvement and entrepreneurialism (Gill, 2007). Somers’s promotion of wellness products and cosmetic procedures reflected and reinforced societal pressures for women to maintain youthful, marketable bodies. Her public persona became intertwined with ideals of health, vitality, and consumer empowerment, yet this empowerment was circumscribed by commercial imperatives and cultural expectations.
Somers’s journey reveals the paradox of body autonomy under fame: while she exercised agency in branding herself as a fitness icon, this agency was constrained by the market’s demand for specific bodily aesthetics. Her body was simultaneously a site of personal identity and a commodified product, consumed and regulated by audiences, media, and capitalist interests.
Media, Feminism, and the Politics of Representation
Feminist media critics have long argued that the commodification of female celebrity bodies reinforces patriarchal power structures by limiting women’s agency and reinforcing normative beauty standards. bell hooks critiques the media’s tendency to objectify women and reduce them to their physical appearance, thereby perpetuating systems of domination (hooks, 1992). The media’s obsession with female bodies functions not only as a form of spectacle but as a means of social control, where bodies become tools for profit rather than expressions of individual autonomy.
Moreover, the rise of digital and social media has intensified this commodification by enabling celebrities—and influencers—to curate their images constantly for consumer engagement. In this context, body autonomy becomes a complex negotiation between self-expression and market demands. While some argue that social media platforms offer women new avenues for empowerment and resistance, feminist scholars caution that these platforms often reproduce existing inequalities by prioritizing commodifiable traits such as beauty, youth, and desirability (Gill, 2012).
This tension is evident in contemporary celebrity culture, where women like Kim Kardashian navigate fame through meticulously controlled self-branding that merges sexuality, entrepreneurship, and media spectacle. Kardashian’s image is crafted to maximize market value, blurring lines between authenticity and commodification. This phenomenon can be seen as a continuation of earlier patterns exemplified by figures like Suzanne Somers, but amplified by the immediacy and scale of digital media.
Age, Desire, and the Capitalist Gaze
A critical aspect of celebrity body commodification is the treatment of aging, especially for women. Cultural iconography often associates youth with desirability and marketability, marginalizing aging bodies and rendering them less visible in mainstream media. Feminist scholars highlight how ageism intersects with sexism, creating compounded pressures for female celebrities to undergo cosmetic procedures and lifestyle regimens to “preserve” their value (Hurd Clarke & Griffin, 2008).
Suzanne Somers’s public embrace of anti-aging treatments exemplifies this dynamic. Her advocacy for Botox, hormone therapies, and fitness aligns with neoliberal ideals of self-care and personal responsibility for aging gracefully. However, this rhetoric masks the structural constraints that compel women to conform to narrow standards of beauty to maintain relevance and profitability. The capitalist gaze thus commodifies not only the youthful body but the process of resisting aging itself, turning it into a marketable product.
Conclusion: The Limits of Body Autonomy in Fame
The commodification of celebrity bodies exposes the paradoxical nature of body autonomy within the culture of fame. While female celebrities may exercise a degree of control over their images and leverage their bodies as brands, this autonomy is circumscribed by entrenched cultural norms and capitalist imperatives. The body becomes a site of ideological contestation where empowerment and exploitation coexist.
Suzanne Somers’s career trajectory vividly illustrates how celebrity bodies are continually shaped and reshaped to meet the demands of marketability, consumer desire, and cultural iconography. Her evolution from actress to fitness mogul to wellness advocate encapsulates the cyclical commodification of women’s bodies over decades, highlighting the persistent tension between personal agency and systemic control.
Through feminist and media-critical analysis, it becomes evident that body autonomy for female celebrities is always negotiated within a framework that commodifies physical appearance, age, and desirability. This framework limits genuine autonomy by transforming bodies into consumable products within the capitalist spectacle. Recognizing these dynamics is essential for challenging the ideological and structural forces that continue to commodify and constrain women’s bodies in media and popular culture.
