Robbie Williams has a new video out. I don't remember the name of the the song, but the video had a whole
plotline in it (the way most of
Fat Bob's videos do these days), about how he and his mates go to
France and rob a bank and have a great time. They then go back to Rob's (that's his name in the story) swanky
mansion and have a big
celebratory party.
Now, the "mates" in the video are all typical lads - beer guts, stubble, crooked noses. Not a single hottie among them. The women who are playing the girlfriends/guests at the party were all, without a single exception, professional models. They were taller than most of the blokes. They were impossibly thin (I counted ribs, ok?). And amazingly beautiful.
And I'm thinking - how is this fair? Why does Tommy Lee Jones get paid so much more than Cathy Bates? Why does no one run exposees in the tabloids when Richard Gere puts on a few pounds? Why did the Sun go on and on about Fergy's fat arse, and not a word was said about her toe sucking lover's shining slaphead? Is it really so much more important for women to be good looking than it is for men?
Whatever the answers to my questions might be, and I'm well aware that they are complex and involved and much more elaborate than just waving the double standard banner, the fact is that the glossies' mission in life is to sell us the idea that we're not good looking enough. We don't wear the right clothes, we don't eat the right food, we don't use the right makeup. If we did, we wouldn't need them to tell us how to do it properly.
That's the marketing philosophy. Now for the reason why I want real women rather than models in magazines.
There is nothing that a size six model can tell me about my personal appearance that would be in any way relevant. Unless she can disclose the secret of disguising a fat belly, making cellulite invisible and magically gaining a clear and powdery complexion, there's nothing she knows that I haven't tried a million times already. In fact, folks, let's face it - if she needed to know all my tips and tricks, she wouldn't be a model.
Models are not experts on beauty. They're not the source of beauty. They're not repositories of beauty wisdom. Theyr'e professionals who get paid big bucks because they happen to have been born gorgeous. I wasn't born gorgeous. Call it bad genes. How is looking at a waif-like blonde goddess going to put me on the right track?
So, ok, industry pundits. I am prepared to buy into the idea that I'm a hideously misshapen creature from the depths of mingertown who needs a blow by blow guide on how to make herself even remotely presentable to the rarefied eyes of an uncaring world (uncaring in that it gives a sweet fuck about my Great Personality(tm)). But for chrissake can't you put the speech bubble on the face of someone who at least remotely resembles a kindred spirit?