21 century identity in popular culture context (by T. Burton's Alice in Wonderland)

The article is devoted to the analysis ofcinema text as a visual and narrative text. The subject of analysis is Tim Burton's movie Alice in Wonderland. This movie is not only ascreen version of a symbolically rich text by Lewis Carroll, it is the reinterpretation of important philosophical topics of the 21stcentury. The article considers transformations of corporeality and specificity of the existence of things. The transition from childhood tothe adult world of the protagonist and her identity are considered in this article through the prism of the body and things (clothes). Thecinema reconfigures the space of culture, creates a new reality based on imaginary planes, builds new symbolic connections. Cinemaactivates imaginary schemes of the viewer. The film addresses directly to the viewer's emotional response, it operates many codes ofcommunication, managing visual affective reaction of viewers. Tim Burton chooses only part of the senses of the most multi-layeredsymbolism of Carroll's text to visualize. In the analysis of the film, the author considers some of them. The first significant layerassociated with the technology, which modern cinema has. Burton has created an unusual reality of the fantasy, which itself can be thesubject of study. The second important layer is the work with the transformation of the body, which also involves the creation of afantasy reality and the discourse of power. This topic of body transformation is also connected with the discourse of clothing. It iscontemporary discourse which did not take place in Carroll's fairy tale. This is the discourse of things as such, and dressed / undressedbodies, the discourse of the body as an instrument of fashion presentations and of finding self-identity. The image of the body for a longtime has been accompanied by image of fashion. Only at the end of the 20th century the image of nudity acquired its own meaning - thebody itself, without clothes, acquired the value of "fashionable''. A fashionable body is regularly trained, put on a diet, so the discourseof the body beauty receives its own place. In the 21st century the representation of the corporeality changed: the body can be corrected,can be changed beyond recognition, can fit to the current ideal of beauty - Medical technology and Beauty Industry give a lot ofopportunities. But clothes still attach meaning to the naked body - through the dialogue with clothes the image of body gets the powerdiscourse of presentation. By example of Alice we can clearly see how it happens. Throughout the film Alice dresses herself severaltimes and each change of clothing makes a new stage of acquisition of her identity. Fashion sends a message, Georg Simmel has notedthat it realizes two opposite aspirations of a person in his/her self-identification - the desire to stand out, to emphasize their ownindividuality and the desire to be included in the community. Alice shows us the extreme edge, an exaggerated personality that violatesthe generally accepted standards easily. The costume designer Colleen Atwood creates a multi-dimensional symbolism of the costume'stext, which allows reading the characters and see the dynamics of finding the identity of the protagonist.

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