The reified circus body is the only negation mass culture preserves

Evidence

The only hint of negation preserved in mass culture Horkheimer and Adorno allowed was in corporeal rather than intellectual art: for example, the circus performer, whose fully reified body promised to break through the commodity character of mass art by carrying objectification to its extreme, thereby exposing what had hitherto been veiled. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 651

Categorization

• QUESTION: This odd exception — the circus performer’s over-reified body exposing commodification — seems worth chasing: Adorno rarely praised physicality.
• XREF: connects to: Mass culture literalizes reification by making living people resemble objects — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 137

Broader Connections

• Mass culture literalizes reification by making living people resemble objects #corroborates (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 137