Will ‘models’ as girls starving themselves to have ‘the perfect figure’ to model clothes still continue to exist in EMS?
When we look at the beings on the runway, what do we see?
Starvation. Anorexia. Abuse. Tinyness. Childlike shoulders. Fragility. Skeletons. The call resonating in our ears and minds from the media to ‘Become really skinny!’ Events of death after fasting:2006, Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston who died from an infection related to anorexia. Horrific abuse of the physical as if to spite those in this world that cannot choose not to eat because they have nothing they could eat. This is the face of capitalism running down the catwalk. Fashion industry proclaiming the ideal of womanhood of thinner and thinner and thinner in a statement of denying that which is keeping us ‘alive’ within and as our physicality here on Earth, our one connection to reality.
Why do beings look toward ideals, be it the latest craze in fashion or figure: pro-anorexia, heroin-chic and hollowed-out eyes? Who have we become to focus on images of physical and mental self-abuse as something worth striving for and copying? Why the promotion of self-emaciation and generally unhealthy standards in magazines, TV and on the internet, such as ‘Make a commitment to your goal. If you are not committed to being runway thin, then you will be easily stumbled when food temptations arise. Eat less--a lot less!’
Why do models exist in the first place? Is the decision to be a model born from free choice? What is the perfect figure? Who says what is perfect? Why should one want to have ‘the perfect figure’? Who and what is being served by the existence of models and the idea of perfection? Why is there something like a fashion industry with fashion designers? Fashion as a way to serve changing consumer tastes? Is there a consumer desire being served? Is there a need? Is there a physical need being fulfilled or a program impulsed, a hidden agenda? Does it serve life? Is it best for all?
Our attention is being controlled. Bombarded with images of bizarre, extreme emaciation with scant or luscious, abstruse and often absolutely impractical manufactured ‘work of art’ as design/fashion that has nothing in common with commodity clothing , convenience or self-expression. We are being manipulated and brainwashed. Industries are being served, capitalism is supported. And again a select few profit immensely. Polarities are being fed to keep us within the imprisonment of the system by creating desires of wealth and money to also be able to play the game of ‘beauty’ and comply with standards dictated by the fashion gurus of the age, decade or year.
The phenomenon is an echo of Greek and Roman times when Aristocracy emerged as a form of government in which few elite citizens rule presenting themselves as the best-qualified, privileged by birth and often by wealth. Aristocracy stood in contrast to monarchy and to the common plebs. Thus the use of good cloth and fabric and stature to stand out and rise above commonality, ignorance of the uneducated classes and to that time even against royalty. Today, the underlying desire to be associated with ‘privilege’ and ‘best quality’ is expressed in haute couture and submitting oneself to a certain specific fashion statement, which is, in a nutshell: the desire to be superior/special. And this is what is being tapped, used and marketed. The desire to be superior in turn springs from the fear of being common, being equal to what one despises, what one doesn’t have control over and thus wants to stand separate from and protect oneself from. Poverty, disease, ignorance; whatever the Ancient Greeks and Romans had already projected onto the lower classes, still runs in our blood, is imprinted in our water – the fear of being ruled over, succumbing to a self-perception of inferiority and fear for one’s reputation – ultimately fear of not being able to survive within society, fear of death.
In wanting to stand out from the masses, one fears the addiction to food as the compensation one often enough allows for the separation within oneself from life and goes into the polarity of and as thinness and self-emaciation as a search for control and feeling of power over the physical needs of one’s body, of life. The ‘perfect figure’ as we are now meant to believe is one of emaciation, that, as always regardless of the currently created ‘trend’, should portray ‘I have self-control’, ‘I am in control’, ‘I am superior’, ‘I am special’, ‘I am above life and its demands’, ‘I’ve got it made’, ‘I am like the Elite’, ‘I am rich and wealthy’, ‘I am in’, ‘I am cool’.
Shockingly enough, female and also male teenagers are so brainwashed by shows such as ‘Germany’s next top model’ and world-wide talent shows that a drivenness and addiction is created within the desire to be special - special enough - to be (ab-)used in the machinery of top-model agencies, shows and broadcasting media. The youth seem to lose all self-respect throwing themselves into the jaws of ruthless fashion agencies and corporations to be used as a product, an object to increase their profit investment ratio.
Obviously, in an EMS the desire for this expression and seeming compensation for control over one’s life within specialness and superiority that breeds self-abuse and abuse by others will be faced. One reason will be the support given psychologically and the growing awareness for the abuse that is inherent within these allowances and acceptances of and as oneself as ‘models’ and the fashion industry in general. The other reason will be the circumstance that it is not possible to gain any kind of profit within the EMS, as due to the changed economic structure all basic needs will be taken care of and capitalism will thus find its end. Money will have the value of life and so one will stand equal to life and will face oneself within and as the aspects one has given one’s expression and self-respect as life away to desires, ideas, and images and, of course, fear of not being accepted.
