The Celebrated Body: Celebrities, Market and Commodification

The article aims to analyse how the celebrities’ bodies, especially in sports, incorporates dominant public values allowing us to understand the transformation of the prevailing ideas in a social context. Nowadays, the athletes’ bodies are no longer tied only to performance or sporting success –or to values like hard work, productivity, perseverance, sacrifice, discipline– but much more, than in the past, to qualities such as beauty, wellness, and style. Fame can depend not only on the achievements or sporting skills, but also on simple visibility. Above all, the athlete’s body, with its incorporated values, has today a market value, and the celebrity is readily commodified.