At some point in the closing ceremony last night they brought out the fashion models, and the internet exploded.
Well I disagree – they’re not bad role models. They’re not role models. They never said they were role models. They’re just people who sell clothes. Shona Robison and co are giving the fashion industry far too much credit – as though it represents some cultural zenith. People who are good at sport, or indeed have any particular talent, don’t generally become models. In fact these girls used to be known as “mannequins”: a term which puts the job much more succinctly in its place.
This is one reason why the show America’s Next Top Model is such a farce – because you really don’t have to put people through competitive “heats” to judge how good they look in a dress. A more realistic formula (and with more bitchy fun) would be a series of rounds trialling the girls for alternative careers, and seeing which of them still have to be models. You’re not qualified to be a doctor, you’re too slow to be an athlete, you’re not good enough at maths to be an accountant: congratulations, you’re still in the running to becoming America’s Next Top Model!
We should all stop putting the fashion industry on a pedestal, then bullying it for not deserving to be there. Even if the fashion industry did bulk up its models – using healthy looking, muscular women – as a post-Olympic hoard are urging it to do, everyone has to face up to the fact that walking up and down looking cross is never going to be a particularly inspiring career. Leave Kate Moss and co alone! They look miserable enough as it is.
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