Anthropreneur

The theme of personified body parts has surfaced again, now in conjunction with Russia’s newly elected president Vladimir Putin. In the style of Gogol’s Nose, the Moscow Museum of Erotic Art created a puppet show portraying the scenario in which Putin lost his penis and turned into his own impotent (and democratic) nemesis, anti-Putin. This is a satirical take on Russia’s constant confusion between political and physical power and on Putin’s fascination with virile power, as documented in this gallery of Putin-as-strongman photos showing the Russian leader half naked and/or engaged in various extreme masculine pursuits.

Angelina Jolie’s leg provocatively exposed to the eyes of millions at the 2012 Oscars Awards Ceremony has established its own Twitter account. It joins Gogol’s Nose and Addams Family’s Thing as examples of famous disembodied body parts leading a “human” life of their own. It remains to be seen if Jolie’s leg will overcome Jolie’s lips as a fetishized synecdoche of the actress herself. In the meantime, it will stand as a monument to the grossly outdated overindulgence of the Oscars.