A horse is not a home

To avoid confusion, we’ve decided to obnoxiously announce our posts. So:

Kat says…

Models and fashion are generally somewhat beyond me, unfortunately. It’s tough to be critical of an industry that innately must combine so many terrifying elements to succeed (money, not gaining weight, not getting old.) Besides I don’t think I’m entitled to much of an opinion as I wear man-shirts, make others feel uneasy when I walk in heels, wear cycling shorts (with aforementioned man-shirts) in the summer and own a pair of tie-dye trousers that could only be described as what MC Hammer might have thrown on when nipping out to buy milk on a Sunday, or if he’d become a hippie. Which is definitely a possibility considering his financial ruin. He’s probably in a sect somewhere odd, drinking organic carrot juice with Annie Leibovitz.

In tandem with the disturbingly accidental philosophical enquiry into perfection (as is so consistently well articulated by the fashion industry) Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is currently debuting around the globe. Set in the world of the New York ballet, it sees Natalie Portman’s character worked psychologically loose by the pressures of her art. Plus (slight spoiler alert) at one point she makes out with Mila Kunis, so you know, I’m excited. The trailer looks superb. I’m pretty sure the film will make it to NZ cinemas in at least 3 years, so nothing like generating a long term buzz. Thanks youtube.



In response to your earlier post - the idea of Daniel Radcliffe anywhere near a horse (even if the horse in question had recently replaced SJP on Sex and the City and acquired some sort of celebrity status) makes me a little queasy. Although such a statement would infer that I might be comfortable with somebody else, other than Daniel Radcliffe, getting up close and personal with a horse. Which, I would like to clarify, I am not. I’m now starting to sound like Bill Clinton. So for the sake of not digging my own grave, I’ll happily move on.

I say move on, but actually the idea of famous horse just triggered a memory. Last year I watched a bizarre animated Belgian film with the very modern name of A Town Called Panic, in which a horse is the central character. While it is really quite long and not particularly ground breaking it does keep you pleasantly entertained. I’m not helping my case much but it a favourite scene is the one featuring a horse-falling-love-wearing-a-scarf. With, ahem, another horse. I’d like to make that very clear.

Modelizing

OK, so I really wanted to hear your reply about how much of a babe you find Daniel Radcliffe and things, but I feel this is more important. Today I awoke to find this piece of blog action on my RSS feed and it kind of grossed me out:

She looks, and I imagine walks, speaks and acts like a child. And she's being touted as "one to watch" in the modelling world. A 13 year old child, is being touted as one to watch for her physical appearance. I find this hard to digest. I've listened and reacted to the rhetoric surrounding what is and what is not appropriate behaviour in the fashion world, but, recently, Ellen Falconer wrote a piece for me about Picture Me: A Models Diary (a movie which has just been released here) that suggests the overarching problem with the modelling industry was the age at which girls were subjected to it because:

A) By being ingratiated into an unrealistic culture at such a young age they believe it is a reality, and grow into it and its false expectations rather than growing to understand and relate to a series of realistic cultural and social standards. And, this point which I find far more important:

B) That when the industry suggests that a 13-14-15 year old girls figure is the normal and desired women's body shape it sets unrealistic standards for the rest of female society who absorb these images. I heard recently that anorexia and eating disorders were becoming overwhelmingly more common in middle-aged women, and this has got to be partly to blame. It's not just 'normal' women either. In Picture Me, international model Lisa Cant states that “a lot of the girls they are saying are anorexic are literally 14 years old. And if a girl is 14 years old and 5’9”, she will sometimes be 100 pounds and be the ideal that all of the other models have to live up to. So I think we should be keeping the younger models off runways.”

There are alternative arguments. I recently had a conversation with a very learned photographer who had grown up on philosophy and the teaching of Germaine Greer, who brought an alternate viewpoint to the table. She noted that Greer suggested that throughout history women have been sexualised at ages 12-13, usually for marriage and children, and therefore utilizing a 13 year old for the runway is nothing new or particularly controversial. 

My argument in response to that would be that our society has inherently changed. 

A) We are living longer and therefore do not need to be reproducing at age 13

B) In the last 500-or-so-years (up until I guess the beginning of the 19th Century) females roles have changed and we are not only respected for our sexual capabilities, but for our equal intelligence and place within society. 

There are so many other threads that come into this argument - the media's (blogs like the above and sensationalist glossy magazines particularly) perpetuation of such standards, the absurdity of attempting to get a 13 year old model to sell clothes to the 35 year old professional who can afford them, the fact that media's representation of society and reality are getting farther and farther removed from eachother - but I think this is a good place to start. It is such an inherent, universal standard, and the question has to be asked? When and how did we let this happen?

Or maybe it's just not that big of a deal.

We could potentially debate this more in person over red wine after seeing the movie:

And you should also read Jenna Sauers writing here, because she is an ex-New Zealander who exposed the ridiculous nature of the industry from behind-the-scenes while she was an international model and is also a very articulate journalist in her own right.

BOOM. Done.

The Unbearable Thought of a Horse as a Sex Columnist

Firstly, I'm sorry for upsetting your predisposition towards equine mammals. My curiosity for those creatures was systematically destroyed by both being kicked by one as a child and by Daniel Radcliffe shedding Griffyndor robes in favour of bestiality on the stage. I hope you won't hold this against me.

Secondly, I think a horse could have played Carrie Bradshaw far more eloquently than SJP, and perhaps  written the original columns in a more exploratory way than Bradshaw herself. Not only would a horse have had a firmer grip on what members of the opposite sex are thinking (this an assumption based on the fact that horses have an equal emotive intuition towards both sexes by being members of neither), horses are more attractive than Carrie Bradshaw and therefore would've had more opposite sex-experience to draw on in said columns. 

Although a Horse Sex Columnist would ultimately involve something highly illegal. Connundrum. 

On a lighter-slash-heavier note (appropriate considering forthcoming book), I just finished reading the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I closed its wonderfully doggy-earred pages on the bus on the way back from the North Shore yesterday morning and as I read the last sentence I was almost physically ill due it its gut-wrenching quality. This is not some attempt to sound in touch with my intellectual-emotive capacities (of which are severely lacking) rather an account of how intensely affecting that book is. Have you read it? It just ends, having stated the most poignant things about human nature. I think I'm still getting over it haha.

There is also a section in it which describes the intelligence of animals and their ability to be emotional, hence why I brought it up. What am I going to read now?

P.S: Please don't EVER diss Alanis again. This shit's powerful, thank you:

One of the girls

Amazing! This almost dispels the myth that authors should barely be seen, let alone heard. Just as well, as I needed cheering up after reading your previous post that compared Sarah Jessica Parker to various horses. As it has, in fact, made me hate horses. Although there is a part of me that believes a horse actually could’ve done a better job at playing Carrie Bradshaw, perhaps bringing a degree of dignity to her pseudo-journalistic scenes. I do however appreciate it would be cruel to make a horse wear Jimmy Choos or spend any time with Kim Cattrall.

The Sex and the City movie sadly pulled a Frankenstein on female empowerment. A series that started out as a relatively good idea eventually became a horrific monster. Unfortunately SATC seems to have done for feminism what Alanis Morissette did to the meaning of irony. As their conversations about sex got louder and louder (I always felt sorry for the other people trying to enjoy their brunch as Samantha worked her way through every single possible way to say penis) the notion of the ‘independent woman’ became so lost in clichés that the only possible way for the series to end was for it to implode in a desert. I’m not necessarily suggesting that a car chase involving Germaine Greer would have been a better alternative, but a copy of The Female Eunuch on a bedside table here and there wouldn’t have been amiss. Even, ironic. Whatever that means.

Have you seen this? Next level obsession from here on out

Horses, Horses, Horses

Kat, 

I like that you raised the cultural monstrocity of Sarah Jessica Parker. Have you seen SATC 2? It is probably the most offensive thing I have ever seen on the big screen, and, y'know, I've got a sense of humour and all. Could've been ironic. Totally wasn't.

They were banned from filming it in Abu Dhabi so preceeded to shoot in Morocco and systematically destroy every cultural sensibility held by the people of said nations. The wearing / not wearing / wearing designer-clothes-underneath their burka's was a particularly sacriligous moment, as was Miranda and Charlotte having a conversation about how impossible it would be to raise children without nannies and cooks. 

Horrendous. All I wanted to see was sweet New York jaunts and the occasional-envy worthy outfits (read: the reasons I watch Gossip Girl). What I ended up seeing was the reason why (and this was only further pronounced by the fact that a bunch of forty year old women up the back clapped at the end of the screening) females get a stereotypical wrap for being ridiculous. 

On a lighter note, this website was shown to me some time ago, and has kept me entertained everytime I'm feeling depressed about the State of popular culture and it's ability to raise these people to God-like status. Introducing, SJP as a horse:

Franzen-mania reaches new, dizzy (as induced by glasslessness) heights. That photo is an excellent example of the best-pal-potential. We even have spec-synergy, or specnergy perhaps.

On further examination of the image, I’m curious as to the two apparent cosmopolitans he has managed to put away. Considering this and the shirt he is wearing, I’m making a wild guess we were enjoying a casual after work catch up with him and Carrie Bradshaw (or Oprah.) Until he made some quip about consumerism and she dashed home to cry into her Mac book and write about how shoes are like men, are like shoes, are like dogs, are like shoes, are like men, are like New York in the fall.

This post changed tack quite rapidly. Franzen Fantasies will do that, I suppose. As will a lingering hatred of Carrie Bradshaw.

Sight and oversight seem to be haunting the poor fellow. Trust the Brits to publish an uncorrected Freedom, a bold new move in our passive aggressive chapter.