WEEKLY WHINE

Focal Plane: Image consciality

This is the fifth instalment of the GoobNet Focal Plane, an occasional series wherein we highlight an unimportant social problem, trying to make you care about it. Previous edition: Interaction.

A quick look at the balance sheets of the Future Perfect Talent Agency can tell you quite a bit. The agency's success has been more or less constant since about 1993. Profits grew every year until last, and even then the agency outperformed the economy as a whole. Although the agency represents a variety of public performers, those in the know can tell you what it is that makes Future Perfect's future, well, perfect.

"Models," says Paul Anfield, Future Perfect's director of modelling services. "Female, male, short, tall, fat, skinny, Norwegian, Chinese, whatever. We've got everything. Our competitors can't come close to the diversity that we've got."

That's the party line, anyway. Dig deeper and you'll find out the truth: The female, tall, skinny, Norwegian models get much more work than do the male, short, fat, Chinese ones. Or any other permutation of the traits that Anfield cited. Though Future Perfect insists upon diversity, its clients do not. This, in essence, is the problem of image consciousness.

Love your body?

Last year, Future Perfect had 88 models to represent. Only twelve of them were hired for more than 20 gigs over the year. All twelve were female, nine of them stood over 1.8 m in height, eight of them massed below 55 kg, and eight of them were blond. In short, they were not a representative sample of the general population.

The same is true throughout the industry. The five leading fashion magazines chose women for 80% of their photo shoots over the past ten years. Of these women, a scant 8% stood less than 1.6 m, and 76% were below average mass for the female population. 69% of the male models were more than 1.7 m tall, and although 44% of them had a mass greater than the average male, 90% fell within a range 25% below to 25% above the average.

Many in the industry say that their job is to help people love their bodies by letting them see other people's bodies. In reality, the message they're sending is: Love your body, but love it more if it's of a particular type.

Destructive tendencies

The history of appetite disorders amongst female models has been well documented. But that is not the only thing that models should be wary of, notes sociologist Jesse Potosi of the University of Southern California.

"A model's job is to be image conscious," Potosi says. "Someone who takes that too far can end up causing themselves a great deal of harm, even if the habit comes from the best of intentions."

As an example Potosi cites a female model in the 1970s whose appearance was held in the highest regard. She, however, believed that this was the case only because of her preparation rather than any inherent beauty. Potosi continues, "So she began spending more and more time preparing for each of her commitments. If it was a show, she would scout the runway in advance and try to find the optimal lighting arrangement. Similarly at photo shoots. And when she was making a television appearance, she would spend up to three weeks visiting the set and trying to predict how she would look in every scene. She was probably popular enough to earn an appearance on a late night show, but none of them would have had the patience for her."

She was eventually diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and managed to wean herself off modelling. Potosi notes that the drive for perfection, in its various guises, is the common thread in all cases of medical problems in models. "The trouble with modelling, compared with most other professions, is that a model's success or failure has quite a bit to do with appearance. As such, whereas people in other professions might study their competition or read up on their subject matter, models find that the easiest way to improve their prospects is to change their bodies. Mental disorders, therefore, can become physical disorders."

The true cost

What, then, is the real cost of an image conscious society? Is it the thousands of models who find the job unfulfilling but too lucrative to leave behind? Is it the families that are severed when modelling prospects sign with an agency at the tender age of fourteen or fifteen? Is it the numerous models who suffer from physical and mental disorders traceable to their profession? Or is it, perhaps, zero?

Anfield, the modelling director at Future Perfect, is of the opinion that there is no problem with the emphasis that our society places upon appearance. "I've seen plenty of models come through here," he says. "Most of them are happy with their profession, and we try to help those who aren't line up new careers. In an open market, anyone should be able to get a job doing anything they like to do. It just so happens that some people like to look at others and are willing to pay for it."

But even Anfield admits to problems in this line of work. The average modelling career only lasts seven years, with the average for women significantly shorter. This high turnover rate forces people like Anfield to search for new talent almost continually.

The true cost of being image conscious may be the disappointment that most of us regular people feel when we see none of these physical specimens in our everyday lives.