Most of these blog entries deserve an entire chapter. I have boiled them down to the basics to make them more approachable, and perhaps more inviting. My hope is that some of these serve as the basis for thought or discussion; that readers fill in the details for themselves according to their own experiences and impressions.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Models



We live in a world that’s dominated by the importance of appearance, and naturally, at the pinnacle of that ideal, we have our reverence of  the current crop of “super” models, who’ve been chosen solely for their looks.

There are two things wrong with this picture.

One, the actual rational fact is that looks are not as important as they’re currently made out to be. The cosmetics and fashion industries are huge, and between them they have for many years repeated the same message over and over, almost exclusively to women,”You need to look your best. We can help you. We can make you pretty, and then your life will be better.” I don’t think I’m overstating it. That’s been the message all along, and it’s everywhere all the time, and at this point it’s part of our culture.

The fact is, you look the way you look, unless you’re so obsessed or insecure that you’ll spend thousands of dollars for surgery on your face. Look, some people are born looking (what we call) attractive, and some aren’t. That’s the way it is; big deal. It’s just chance, and you had nothing to do with it. You can keep yourself clean and well-groomed, and that should be enough…and in many people’s eyes, that is enough. That much of your appearance is in your control. At the same time, the person you are, the way you conduct and present yourself, is completely in your control. On this, I yield to Oscar Wilde:
One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

So in a perfect world, which this ain’t…you are what you do, not what you look like. And we all know perfectly wonderful people who are not gorgeous. Most of us call them “best friends.” It’s what’s inside…

Now the second thing wrong with this picture is the unfortunate elevation of the models themselves to a position of apparent importance. They could hardly be less important. They won the genetic lottery, is the way some people put it, and I like that description a lot. They just happen to look right for the time they’re in; if you look back through history or even just over the last few decades you’ll see that the ideal of beauty has changed over time. And of course it will change again. But if you have the right look for the right time…then you’re the flavor-of-the-month, or of-the-year, or whatever you get away with. These models have a face that some company has chosen to use as part of its own public face; they represent the company in advertising, and sometimes through personal appearances. They are not paid to talk. Probably the opposite is true; they are paid NOT to talk. They are paid to stand where they’re told, and have their face. Somehow, to MY great amusement anyway, models will try to make this sound like a difficult job. Oh, I’m sorry…it is not. Would you switch jobs with them? You’re damn right. We all would. (I should warn you, though…one poor girl said that once when they were shooting in Hawaii it got windy as the sun went down, and she got chilly. You might not want to put up with crap like that.)

How do models get away with the haughty prima donna attitudes? If anything, they should be the most grateful people on Earth, shouldn’t they? You cannot be luckier than they are. Born lucky. They get paid a lot, and they do nothing.

As a culture, sounds like we’ve gotten pretty confused. It wasn’t long ago that Albert Einstein was a national hero for his intelligence and his achievements. His opinions were sought, and heeded. Nowadays, in his place, we have…embarassment, in the form of the poorly scripted and directed “reality” players who celebrate the undisciplined and selfish behavior of teenagers while masquerading as young adults with thoughts and dreams of their own.
It’s an embarassing time to be an American.

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