ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on a given set of observable behaviours – self-starvation, body augmentation, bingeing, and extreme exercise– and deals with what those bodies and behaviours might be attempting to communicate. The mirror scene thus renders visual, the issue of how far to discuss race is to simultaneously and necessarily to discuss white hegemony. From Aubrey's outlandish recipes such as pork cyst to the family meals of roast lamb and cheese toasties to the chocolate spread that is licked off Nicola's breasts by her boyfriend, food communicates, organises, and dominates the frame. Work, likewise, forms a structure around which the action turns, enacting a dramaturgy of social utility. Nicola's lack of employment is set deliberately against the grinding slog of Andy's loathed job in a commercial kitchen, Natalie's plumbing, and Wendy's dance class. The bureaucratic imagination of the film points to the public availability and narratability of poor women's bodies, and in particular black women's bodies.
