Body Ritual among the Nacirema - Isabelle Saxon

 Miriam Isabelle P. Saxon 

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

8/26/20


The  “Nacirema”

(Disclaimer I was planning to write this as I read the material, but I quickly had a revelation about it and changed how I was originally planning to write it. I left in my original begging because I thought you might find it interesting.)

Anthropology is a field in which diversity is very common in their work, but the way in which the Nacirema act is so extreme that it is surprising even to someone who works is so heavily steeped in abnormality. The Nacirema are still surrounded in mystery as little is known about their origin other than their vague comments about coming from the east. They are located in North American between Canada and Mexico...that's where America is. Wait, Nacirema is American spelled backwards...is this a joke? 

(I was originally planning on writing this as I read the article but after my earlier revelation I read the article then came back and wrote the rest of my response.)

Even though this article wasn’t meant to be a joke I found a lot of it really funny. The way the article describes American life making it seem like it’s some sort of strange exsotic was really interesting. The entire article was really accurate to how Americans live their lives, but by not using the names and adjectives that are commonly used to describe them it lets you get a more objective view. I have taken for granted how normal all though practices were, but here them described like that made them seem crazy. I have heard Americans judge other cultures for how “weird” their customs are and yet we accept the insane and impractical as normal. I was especially interested in the part where they talked about how the “Nacirema” culture is based around the idea that the human body is horribly flawed, which I don’t disagree with as insecurity runs deep in American culture. The line “There are ritual fasts to make fat people thin and ceremonial feasts to make thin people fat” really struck a chord with me. American sorority idealizes the most uncommon body shape and makes those who don’t have it feel so bad about it that they're willing to try anything to get there. The ideals of perfection we hold and the things people are willing to do to reach them are insane. There was a lot about the article that I found fansatesing, but that part just really resonated with me. Overall I had a really fun time reading this. I loved how it gave me a new perspective on what I have considered normal.  

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