Abstract
In Eat Pray Love, the film adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert’s tale of travel and self-discovery, we see American consumer culture on display. Lucrative industries are ready to help women navigate crises of identity, but these solutions might be nothing more than salves.
Eat Pray Love, the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling travel diary, illustrates the type of soul-searching that has become emblematic of life in an increasingly individualized and self-absorbed society. Consumption is an integral part of this quest for self-discovery, supported by multi-billion-dollar industries that cater primarily to middle-aged women. While the film itself does not explicitly address themes of sociodemographic change, consumerism, or gender, the main character’s journey invites reflection on these bigger social phenomena.
Trapped in a marriage that is no longer fulfilling, our protagonist Liz decides to break free and confront her unhappiness. “I used to have this appetite for my life, and it is just gone,” she tells her closest girlfriend. Her handsome husband, cozy home in New York City, and successful career all feel hollow—as does her brief romance with a similarly adrift Yogi from Yonkers.
Many women find themselves at a crossroads. Liz, at the outset of the film, is searching for enlightenment as a newly single and emotionally empty individual. The research of sociologists Sharon Zukin and Jennifer Smith Maguire suggests that Liz’s quest is not unique—struggling to find oneself and one’s place in the world is now a common, if not universal, experience. This obsession with self-discovery—a project social theorist Zygmunt Bauman calls “becoming what one is”—is arguably the result of recent and dramatic social changes. Key social structures that have, in the past, provided individuals with guidance on their relationships and general life direction (such as the church) have lost cultural potency. Moreover, families, intimate relationships, jobs, and career trajectories have become increasingly insecure or unclear. Women have experienced the most significant changes most directly, so they may also be the most likely to wrestle with issues of identity and life purpose. Fortunately for women like Liz (that is, women of means), lucrative industries are ready to step in to help them navigate such crises of identity.
Author Elizabeth Gilbert at the London Premiere of Eat Pray Love, starring Julia Roberts.
After confiding in her closest friends, Liz begins her quest by purchasing several relationship advice books. As the bookstore clerk rings in her copy of Crappy to Happy, she casually mentions that they “also have a whole divorce section downstairs.” As this quip reveals, bookstores are filled with self-help texts, and this industry generates billions of dollars of sales in North America, nearly doubling in the past decade. The industry grew by nearly 25 percent annually at the turn of the millennium, and sales now increase around 10 percent per year; its estimated value hovers just below $14 billion in the U.S. And Women’s Health magazine reports that Americans spend over $600 million annually on these books. Promoting emotional and spiritual growth, the self-help industry thrives on the search for identity and meaning. This industry also includes magazines and television programs, and each, in turn, cross-promote products and services: therapy and counseling, spiritual growth workshops, and getaways that offer time for deep thinking and reinvention. Oprah Winfrey—one of the wealthiest and most influential Americans—is at the center of this consumption nexus promoting the purchase of enlightenment. According to the Wall Street Journal, she is behind the career success of major self-help gurus like Dr. Phil McGraw, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and Suze Orman. Through her $2.4 billion media empire, Oprah has pushed the popularity of the therapeutic discourse that permeates self-help products and mainstream North American culture.
And so, after reading several self-help guides, Liz sets off on a multi-month trip to Italy, India, and Indonesia. Without any apparent concern about financing her trip or making money when she gets back home, Liz simply disappears, buying her way out of a life that’s suffocating her. While some popular strategies for finding enlightenment through consumption—like reading an advice book or attending a personal growth workshop—are within reach of ordinary women, others demand more resources than the average woman has at her disposal. Despite claims that the quest for self-discovery and enlightenment has democratized, no longer reserved for the ultra-wealthy with unlimited time and resources, few women could afford Liz’s luxurious escape strategy.
Good thing that shortly after her arrival at an Indian ashram, Liz is offered an opportunity to contemplate her financial fortune. Tulsi—an Indian girl working at the retreat—is preparing to enter into an arranged marriage with a young man she barely knows and doesn’t find physically attractive. Where is Tulsi’s escape route? It’s hard to imagine that she will be able to buy her way out if she finds her marriage suffocating. Liz’s voyage of discovery presupposes a middle- or upper-middle class lifestyle that is out of reach for most of the world’s women. Rather than spurring her to contemplate privilege, Tulsi evokes in Liz only a memory of marital entrapment.
Lucrative industries are ready to step in to help women navigate crises of identity.
From India, Liz proceeds to Indonesia and meets Felipe, who has also gone through a divorce and built a new life. It is through Felipe, and his efforts to open Liz’s heart, that the movie reveals a moral hazard of reinvention and self-discovery: selfishness. Felipe is frustrated that while Liz has boldly set out to find herself, she is unable to let go of her fears and love him back. According to social theorists Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, constant reinvention—on one’s own terms—characterizes life and love in the West today. But the emphasis on individual self-discovery doesn’t come without risk; when overdone, it leads to unhealthy self-absorption. As Felipe recognizes, Liz has taken some risks in leaving her marriage and embarking on her travels, but falls short of daring to love again. She seems too focused on her own emotional needs. The riskiest part of her journey will lie in balancing her new sense of self with the desire to love and be loved. It’s a common challenge today: Liz is a typical American, torn between a strong commitment to intimate relationships and to individualism.
But perhaps Felipe is too quick to fault Liz for holding back and looking inward. Women and the cultural goods they consume in their search for enlightenment are often criticized for their unabashed focus on the self. These goods bear the imprint of neoliberal ideology—with its emphasis on looking out for oneself above all. Like Liz’s travels, they are terribly indulgent and can undermine women’s efforts to open up and let the universe in. Worrisome multi-billion-dollar industries promoting enlightenment push women to look deep inside themselves without also encouraging them to reach out and build relationships that might open their hearts and minds. While consumption empowers women to (re)construct and display a self, ironically it often hinders the development of an other-directed and empathetic self. It isn’t a perfect bowl of pasta or a quiet afternoon at the ashram that brings Liz closest to finding herself and her new path—it’s the relationships she forges along her journey. After all, in Bali, Liz reflects, “When you set out in the world to help yourself, sometimes you end up helping tutti [everybody].”