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This thesis explores how racialized and gendered power dynamics are reflected in public discourse on digital replicas and the personal narratives of models. Using the lenses of digital capital and objectification theory, it examines how these power relations impact models' agency and ownership over their images and digital bodies. Employing a combination of critical discourse analysis and autoethnography, the research provides macro and micro perspectives on power relations in the fashion industry. The findings highlight how digital capital impacts who gets to shape the narrative on digital replicas and who reaps the benefits of these technologies. It sheds light on how racialized and gendered power relations intersect with objectification and digital capital, impacting who can benefit from digital replicas. The study highlights models' significant challenges in maintaining autonomy and control over their careers and public image. It suggests that new technologies, such as digital replicas, can further exacerbate existing inequalities. The findings also highlight how power dynamics on both a societal and interpersonal level shape the potential for digital replicas to enhance agents' control over models and intensify their experiences of commodification. By aligning with previous research on models' marginalization and research on how new technologies can intensify existing inequalities, this thesis contributes to the broader conversation on how existing power relations, labor, and technological developments shape one another.

While it is very common for supermodels to make the occasional foray into cinematic performance, and some of them manage to turn these forays into full-time careers in acting, it is very rare that supermodel-actors are afforded any academic attention. This thesis seeks to change this through a case study of two supermodel-actors: Devon Aoki and Abbey Lee. Using a methodology that combines extratextual contextualization with close analysis of image and film materials, and grounded in a perspective that centers the body, it analyzes Aoki and Lee’s careers as they cross over from one form of stardom to another. The focus of the analysis lies in the way that the bodily capital which is the basis of their modelling work also informs their acting personas as they are shaped through their on-screen work, publicity and reception. Furthermore, the thesis applies the concept of niche stardom, adapted from Diane Negra, to illustrate how Aoki and Lee inhabit a stardom which is specific to certain audiences with specific values and tastes. The analysis finds that there is a significant overlap between Aoki and Lee’s modelling and acting personas, and that this overlap is channeled through the representations of their bodies which, are the sites of heterogeneous discourses of gender, sexuality and race.