The Only Way to Win the Game is Not to Play

The Fug Girls, who have a pretty suh-weet gig commenting on all things fashion related for New York Magazine have some valid things to say about Vogue's "Shape" Issue. If you're unfamiliar with the "Shape" issue, this is when "my hair is bigger than my body" editor Anna Wintour decides that it's time to put out an issue to appease The Big Girls, and by "big" I mean the girls who wear a size six, not a fourteen.

Cut to the Fug Girls:

Every year, as a nod to the abnormality of its bony universe, Vogue publishes a shape issue purporting to spotlight non-model bodies for a change. It often feels as perfunctory as it sounds — like alpha-twigs know anything about cellulite? — but this year we dove in with extra curiosity thanks to Anna Wintour’s recent criticism of runway models’ diminishing frames. Would that sentiment bloom into an issue that actually honored real clothing sizes and three-dimensional shapes?

Not so much, apparently.

{...}Yet, short of featuring a bacon-cheeseburger on the cover, this is sadly probably the best we can expect from Vogue. It just isn’t in the habit of realism. Because it peddles fashion and fantasy better than anyone, these clumsy attempts to soften up just feel as patronizing and ham-handed as a Very Special Episode of Blossom, but without the hats. So while we’d love to see women of various sizes in the magazine — wearing bizarre $20,000 goat coats like any other model — if it keeps feeling like an act of bored, forced obligation, we’d rather Vogue climbed back on its pedestal and left us to get our feel-good fix from Glamour. And a pizza.

The Girls have a point. Vogue is, well, Vogue. It's meant to be the fashion bible, and, yes, while it's frustrating to look at the photo spreads in that magazine and be disheartened that a. the models keep getting younger and younger (and, no, I don't mean that in the context of my getting older; they're honestly no more than fourteen or fifteen years old at most, and hence have the body types associated with that age (no hips, no boobs, they've lost their baby fat, but haven't gained any Reese's peanut butter cup-associated fat, either.)) and, b. that the clothes are extremely impractical and just are not meant for anyone. At some point you just have to realize that they're peddling this magazine not to budding fashionistas, and people who love clothes, but to photographers, and the art world. The clothes are the art, and as such, you want the art to look good, so you hang it on a nice wall, aka a size zero model.

I know I'm rare in that I've actually modeled a bit---and when I mean "a bit", I mean I had a total of three jobs when I was in high school, and I did it a. as a favor to a lady I knew who worked in the advertising world, who needed models who weren't from the local Barbizon school and b. for the cash, because I got paid $50 a pop. While it was actually the most boring job I've ever held down (and that's saying a bit), tottering around in high heels on a four-foot platform the size of a child's shoebox, it was, nonetheless, educational. If I had to go on tee vee, even now, almost twenty years later, I could do my own makeup. I know what clothes are most flattering and work with the limitations of the cameras (no red, no checks, or optical illusion-type patterns). But mostly what I learned is that, if you're smart, you realize that they don't really want you because you have a charming personality, charisma, or a vivacious smile, although that's part of what you bring to the table, it's that whatever they're peddling will look good on your body. You are just a hanger for their clothes. That's it. Therefore to sit there, and flip through Vogue, and base your entire self-image on what the hangers look like is a bit ridiculous. If you're looking through Vogue to find women who "look like you" and you aren't an androgynous, prepubescent, bony young girl, you're going to be a bit disappointed, aren't you?

I'm just tired of playing this game. The fashion magazines are in existence to sell clothes. They make a lot of money on this, hence, they know how to do it, which means they're going to use skinny, young models, with dewy skin and the bodies of a twelve-year-old boy to sell the wares. Women read fashion magazines to keep up with the latest trends, to see who's doing what in fashion, to see what they want to buy. But there is a disconnect---the clothes that are advertised, generally speaking, aren't made for the women who buy the magazines. This is just what the deal is. I'm weary of reading article after article about how the average American woman is a size fourteen and how disheartened they feel after watching tee vee or reading a fashion magazine, how angry they are that none of this is meant for them; how these magazines and designers are holding them up to a standard they'll never meet. I'm tired of the argument of how the fashion magazines, the entertainment industry, et. al, are encouraging eating disorders in young girls because of the images they put out. I'm sick of Kate Winslet and other actresses holding themselves up for the admiration of all because they claim they choose not to starve themselves, when it's patently obvious that they're nowhere near "average size" and that they simply cannot be because of the demands of their jobs, in front of cameras, which really do add ten pounds. I'm sick to death of all of it, even though, from time to time, I'm just as guilty of perpetrating these issues on this here blog as anyone else who's bitched about size-two models. I've had a change of heart, however. As Joshua once said in War Games, the only way to win the game is not to play. While I will grant you, he was a computer and was chatting about Global Thermonuclear War, the machine's got a point.

It's time for an attitude shift.

If women are really sick of what Vogue and all the other magazines are peddling, STOP BUYING THEM. Stop buying the products they advertise. That will send them a message as clear as anything else. If, however, you want to buy the magazines and wear the clothes advertise, start working out so you can fit into them. It's your choice. You won't be happy, probably, because no one wants to be hungry all the time, but if that's what you really want, go for it. You have my blessing, because at least you'll be doing something about it, instead of wishing for the impossible to happen. If young girls are starving themselves to fit some preconceived notion of what beauty is, my question usually is, where are the damn parents? How can they not see that their daughter is excusing herself to go and throw-up after every meal? I once read a story somewhere about a girl who had hundreds of empty paint cans shoved under her oversized princess bed, and instead of being full of paint, they were full of vomit. This was how she chose to hide her problem. She knew that the toilet in her bathroom would eventually plug up, so, living in a new development, where there were plenty of empty paint cans available in dumpsters nearby, she started appropriating them and used them as her own personal vomitorium. How did her parents not realize this? This whole thing is a sick, co-dependent cycle. There is choice involved. Women choose to participate in this game and on either side of it, each needs the other's dysfunction to keep going, otherwise they themselves will disappear.

Is this a reality-based solution? Probably not. But, I have a bit of a different perspective on all of this since I went through chemo. I hit absolute rock bottom in terms of vanity toward the end of my treatments. There's no getting around it:I looked like a spud. A bald spud whose face had been rounded off with steroids. In fact, you could pick out all of Dr. Academic's patients in the waiting room because we all looked alike. I had no eyebrows or eyelashes, which you need for facial definition. I had no hair, through which to express my personality or my sense of style, despite what I was wearing. Because my skin was gray, with nary a shade of pink to be found in my cheeks when I went severely anemic, and the deep, dark circles of exhaustion under my eyes that never went away no matter how much sleep I got, I looked ill. There was absolutely nothing I could do in terms of clothing or makeup that would make me look like anybody other than what I was at that point: a sick person. While I wasn't happy about it, there wasn't much I could do about it, either, and that, in itself, was, surprisingly, liberating. I could go out of the house and know that this was as good as it got, and while it wasn't very good, at least I wasn't "looking good and feeling better" in a room on the oncology floor of the hospital. I could leave my house, do what I could manage to do, and while I didn't look great, and, most of the time didn't feel great, this was, in and of itself, a big deal. I was alive and moving, and that wasn't too shabby. I knew that, someday soon, the rest would come back once the treatments were done. And it did come back, even if I was impatient for it to do so. When my eyelashes, eyebrows and---Mother of God!---hair came back, it was cause for much rejoicing. The first time I could put on mascara in a few months, I was happy as a clam, and I'm still get a small, cheap thrill every time I put the stuff on. I'm sure I'll get back to bitching about the crap soon enough, but all of this provides an important lesson, to be sure: none of this stuff is necessary. Sure, putting on make-up and dressing in stylish clothes can make you feel nice and normal, but, on the whole, this is stuff you can live without. You can live without reading Vogue as well, or buying new clothes, or trying to live up to someone else's standards about your appearance. You don't have to play the game. In fact, the only way to win the game is not to play.

Perhaps this is all overly optimistic of me, because I'm obviously not coming from a place where too many people have been, but that's just the way I see it. You have a choice: you can either buy into this scenario, choosing one side or the other, or you can choose not to. It's up to you.

Posted by Kathy at March 31, 2008 12:13 PM | TrackBack