Monday, September 26, 2005

In Defense of Kate Moss

Well, I hate to see that Kate Moss's only defender seems to be Naomi Campbell. I mean, really. Kate Moss uses drugs. Big surprise. Why is everyone acting so shocked? Of course Moss uses drugs. Supermodels don't just spring forth from the earth that thin. You get that thin by not eating. You stomach self-imposed starvation by doing drugs. If you are a company that wants to show off your products by placing them on tall, skinny women with gaunt spacy looks, it only makes sense to hire drugged out models. That's the easiest way to get skinny, gaunt, and spacy. We all know slim women who are slim because they eat well and exercise. They don't look vapid and scare-crow-esqe and they are not supermodels. So, what's interesting about this whole incident is not Moss's drug use, which is hardly surprising, but the rapid response of the companies she was working for, who fired her, not because she was using drugs, which clearly, they had to know, but because she got caught using drugs. I really wonder how much of this is punishment--not for the drug use directly--but for letting the illusion slip. In order for advertising to work, it must create in us a need and then provide us with the means to fill that need. Burberry, for instance, wants us to buy their clothing, so their advertisements show glamorous women and men wearing their clothing. We're supposed to look at those images, wish we had lives like that, and think to ourselves "maybe if I owned that coat, I could have a life like that girl, at least a little bit. I, too, could be thin and pretty and stylish and have a jaunty boyfriend with a dog." But there's Moss, making it obvious that, if you want to be like that girl, it's going to take more than the coat; it's going to take a wicked coke habit. So, she's kicked to the curb, not for her drug use, exactly, but because her drug use reveals the many ways in which the stuff she advertises can't even give her the kind of life the advertisements promise.

11 Comments:

Blogger KlevaBich said...

Amen. I am so sick of these skeletal females being presented as the "ideal," while normal women are "plus size." I suppose there are a few models who are naturally heroin chic, but damned few.

9/26/2005 06:56:00 PM  
Blogger theogeo said...

But razor-sharp hip bones and clavicles are so cuddly!

9/26/2005 10:00:00 PM  
Blogger Shirley said...

Since the "heroin chic" drugged-out look has been so popular, why is this such a big surprise to the companies that use these faces? We have drugged-out people walking through the front door of my company all the time, and it's not a symbol I'd want to represent any kind of business.

But it's nice to know that even skeletons have friends who will stick up for them

9/27/2005 06:29:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As someone who knows his way around a coke-fiend model or two, let me just remind you that they are people, too.

Skinny,broke,edgy,and damaged people, but people just the same.

Sure, you can look your intact sinuses down at them for their dumb dust fueled antics. Is it their fault they can trade their good looks for money, drugs and an overly indulgent lifestyle? Or can the fault be put squarely on Madison Avenue creating an unrealistic ideal for young women, then paying them for living up to it? And if you indict the American advertising industry, aren't you really indicting one of the cornerstones of the American economy? Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to you bad mouth the United States of America!

The Password is fouri.

9/27/2005 11:36:00 AM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Shoot, like knowing your way around a coked up scrawny girl is something to brag about.

Who here hasn't inadvertenly ended up fucking a coke-fiend model? Seriously, you're having a perfectly fine time with your partner of choice and all of a sudden there's some sharp prick from under your right tit and you lift it up to take a look and there's Kate Moss, looking confused and a little battered, poking you with the sharp ridge of her spine. What else can you do but invite her to join in?

9/27/2005 12:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

St. Paddy's isn't for a few months, you can stop wearing green.

It isn't bragging, it's a lamentable waste of time and money.

Like Kate Moss is the only sharp prick you've had under your right tit.

9/27/2005 01:51:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Like Kate Moss is the only sharp prick you've had under your right tit.

Aw, shucks, I bet you say that to all the girls.

9/27/2005 01:54:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Only to the coked-up music row groupies, gherms, and assorted hangers on.

If I didn't say it, someone else would have. And we can't have that.

The Password is yooby

9/27/2005 01:57:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Are you suggesting I'm an assorted hanger-on? Is that what passes for flattery nowadays?

9/27/2005 02:17:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
-- Abraham Lincoln

9/27/2005 02:22:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

That's better. Of course I'm the kind of girl who likes to hear a good historical quote from the greatest ambigiously omnisexual president ever. Mary Todd? Ann Rutledge? Joshua Speed? Is there any bed that man couldn't talk his way into?

9/27/2005 02:33:00 PM  

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