Spotted on PageSix:
Victoria’s Secret model Doutzen Kroes
Doutzen Kroes is happy about the new Model Alliance bill to protect underage models, but admits the job can affect women’s self-esteem.
“Sometimes it makes me feel guilty now that I am in this profession that makes certain girls insecure,” the Victoria’s Secret beauty, 28, told us. “I always say, I don’t look like the picture . . . If you put me in bad light with no hair and makeup, it’s not good . . . I wake up sometimes like, this is not what I see when I look at the magazine, who is this visitor in the bathroom?” [source]
Now, pardon me for asking, but I do have a few quick questions:
1) What does it mean when the real life model says that her own photographs don’t look like her?
2) Why don’t these kinds of quotes get more attention? Why don’t we show more girls and women these kinds of quotes to help them get a little insight into how much of a fantasy world the woman in these images live? Should we?
3) I think it says an awful lot when, instead of asking “who’s this girl in the magazines,” she asks “who is this visitor in the bathroom.” Even though she can admit that the images are fantasy, she identifies more with the fantasy than her own reality. It just…it says a lot.
I think we just need to get to a point where we look at these images and appreciate them for what they are – science fic— er, I mean, simple fantasy. Start explaining to our young girls early that these images are altered from reality, these pictures are photoshopped badly and totally retouched, these women don’t even go on the runway without wearing booty paint, they literally starve themselves in insane ways to lose weight for those shows then go back to regular life as soon as the show is over, and there’s never a shortage of scumbags to make you feel bad about yourself for not looking the way they want you to look…which also happens to be… like these models.
In short, you’ve got to learn (and teach your children) how to give these images the middle finger pretty early. Not even the models themselves can connect to the reality that is… “that ain’t you on the page, boo!”
6 comments
Great post. Like you, I thought it was interesting that she questioned the visitor in the bathroom rather than the image in the magazine. It makes me feel kind of sad for her.
Hi,
I agree this kind of quote should be put forward more..unfortunately magazines should not to.
A journalist once asked to Cindy Crawford which celebrity [body] does she lust over secretely..she said something like ‘My one! When I see my pictures I’m just like who is this person?! I want to be her she’s so pretty and perfect. Even my mole don’t like that good’. That says it all.
Thx for your article.
Cynthia
Sorry should have read…Magazines chose not to”
Hopefully young girls and women will learn about these things from early on. This fantasy is causing women to expect unrealistic images of their body. Luckily I read this blog because in the past my goal was to look like the girls in the magazine it’s not real.
Thanks for the education.
During carnival season I wore my costume with stretch marks and all and was not embarrassed. Yay!!!
I totally agree that it starts with teaching our girls that these magazines are fantasy. I use to train to become a professional dancer and one of the things I realized is that you start to form a double identity with yourself. In my case it was to stay at least somewhat mentally healthy despite the pressure to be super thin in that industry. For example, I knew I looked great and totally in shape in “real life” and yet knew I still had some work to do by the dance worlds standards. And it’s for the same purpose of creating a fantasy for the reader/audience. The problem we run into is that the human brain actually has a hard time distinguishing fact from fantasy. Think about when you go to the movies and you literally get scared watching a scary movie or cry at a sad movie. It’s because you are experience the same emotions as the characters you’re watching. The same with the beauty industry. Once I stopped dancing one of the first things I did was stop looking and buying fashion magazines in addition to cutting down the commercials on beauty. These and other things helped me to bring my “two” selves into one person again. And now with photoshop…smh. It’s just a really tough thing. I think the bigger turn around has to be the idea that individuality is a beautiful thing and that’s a tough concept for people to not only swallow, but buy into literally. At the end of the day the beauty industry will change wi=hen the standard of beauty changes. And that literally means when the dollars stop flowing into these companies.
As far as my community? Smh. I live in a mostly black (maybe 40% of other races/ethnicities) up and coming neighborhood and the standard of beauty is definitely different. It’s weaves, wigs, the tightest jeans and replica’s of the latest fashion. I certainly don’t fit the standard except for maybe my size (totally in shape with a medium to large build, “thick” in other words…God I hate that term). Meaning I wear my hair natural, clothes that are fashionable but pretty conservative, and don’t have a mean mug face all the time in the street lol. For awhile it use to make me feel insecure about my own beauty because I would receive a little acknowledgement from black men here, until it dawned on me that the men in my neighborhood weren’t my type in the first place (I don’t go for thuggish looking types lol). That’s when I stopped looking for outside acknowledgment once again and decided that I am beautiful because I am and that’s it. I have nothing to prove, only to demonstrate through my actions.
when i was 14 i got accepted by a talent agency. i was already overweight and really wanted more then anything to live the glamours life style of the rich and famous and be an actress.Part of the agency required courses. basically so you could walk the walk and talk the talk. i was doing this for acting but the courses focused on both so i couldn’t opt out of the expectations they had for models and the training they offered. now this was girls from ages 13-22. when we all started we had round happy faces, it was a 3 month course that took place once a week. by the end of it all we were told to do international modeling or to basically walk on a runway you need to stand at 5’11 and have under a 22 inch waist. at the end of the courses we had a graduation where we were scouted by talent agencies that paid more. when i showed up the day of the event a few weeks after our courses were done. out of a class of 21 ladies. 8 showed up. the rest with the exception of 3 all were hospitalized due to severe eating disorders. i myself went from a size 11 to a size 5 in less then 10 weeks because of how conscious i had become of my weight. it was one of the toughest parts of my life. it was something i wanted so bad but could never have. it was my dream and i was told i was too big to ever have the lifestyle of the rich and famous. it stemmed so many problems for me. i now have been diagnosed with binge eating disorder and am working on setting a standard for myself and talking to someone about my health.
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