Ice-Skating in a Black Leather Suit Body Politics: Difference, Domination and Subversion in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane and Randal Kleiser’s Grease

Abstract

The common trait between Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane’s main character, Nazneen, and the motion picture Grease’s female protagonist, Sandy Olsson is that both of them refuse to be culturally constructed by the patriarchal dominant discourse. Following Kathy Davis’ distinction when defining the main approaches to body politics, in this essay, we will discuss ‘difference, domination and subversion’. These main issues will be analyzed at three levels: food, clothing, and dancing, thus covering the inside of the body, the outside, and the use the protagonists make of it through movement, respectively.