While watching the movie, Trading Places, I found the various ways in which Eddie Murphy’s character, Billy Ray Valentine, and Dan Akroyd’s character, Winthorp Louis III, were transformed by the Duke brothers to be particularly interesting. Their various transformations were set into motion by the manipulation and changing of a respective set of social and physical signifiers in the case of each. Billy Ray becomes William by gaining property, employment and other indicators of status in society, while Winthorp becomes Louie by being “stripped” of most of what his foil gains. But perhaps the most interesting aspects of the transformation each must undergo are those processes and experiences which touch upon the corporeal level of sensation and body perception that Kaja Silverman examines in The Bodily Ego.

The transformational experiences of both Billy Ray and Winthorp are marked by numerous instances of physiological signifiers, which I am identifying as instances where their newly acquired positions in society are acted out physically upon their bodies. Billy Ray upon entering his new life experiences a variety of new corporeal experiences that signify not only a changing visual and environmental perception, but a completely different physical interaction with his world. Whether it is the cleansing bath that he takes upon being escorted to his new home or the basic change in physical comfort from living on a cold street in winter to occupying a heated, climatized space, Billy Ray’s body is inducted into a new environment of sensations that changes the way he perceives himself in relation to others and the world. Winthorp’s induction is even more directly physical and demonstrates even more clearly the ways in which people at different class levels experience the corporeal world.

Beginning with his stripping in a crowded room, Winthorp’s ego is transformed by the physically violent experiences that his body undergoes, including the bruises he receives, the attempted rape he rants about, his pitiful begging upon his knees after being released from jail and the rain that falls on him while standing outside the restaurant that leads to his illness. Schilder’s theory states that the body and therefore the ego are “profoundly shaped by the desires which are addressed to it, and by the values that are imprinted on it through touch” and that “the shape of the body also shifts with the desires of the subject, desires which position him or her once again in a structuring relation to the Other.”

Though Schilder and Silverman are trying to address identity formation in children, I feel like it is relevant in the case of the process of sensation-based signifiers that are strongly present in Trading Places, though I realize that is a bit of a leap to make that assumption. But to defend my argument, I think that the processes that each character undergoes have very clear parallels in the “transformative” effect thought be found in the rituals of many religions. Billy Ray’s first bath in his new abode could be easily compared to a baptism, as both serve as sensational experiences of submersion that lead to change in life-paths. The moment in which Winthorp falls upon his knees in supplication of Jamie Lee Curtis’s character also has rich symbolic parallels to conversion rituals in Christianity. Rather than purporting symbolic relations to Christianity on the part of the film’s makers, I merely seek to establish with this point that moments of movement or transition are often fraught with many sensational, tactile signifiers that would seem to have an effect on identity transformation

In this movie, and in ritual, it would seem that these very physical experiences have the power to change and shape new identities. What do you think? What real effect can the changes or experiences in which a body is physically acted upon have upon identity? Does this process only occur during childhood or is it one that continues throughout one’s life?