I seriously debated where this post should appear, here or on Veganity. Obviously I ultimately decided it should go here.
I was extremely disappointed when I was watching ANTM last wednesday. Not just in the show, but in myself. Here I am, professing to be all about animal rights, when here I am, watching a skeezy reality show about wanna-be-models.
How is there a disconnect? Well, first I want to explain the content of the episode.
As you may know, ANTM is about a group of young women who compete to win the title of America’s Next Top Model. Tyra Banks is the creator and host, and all the girls are ‘fierce’. They compete through various photo shoots and runway shows.
The photo shoot for last week’s episode was completely and utterly the most disgusting thing I have seen in a long while. The models had to model inside of a meat packing plant freezer with sides of beef. And not only that–they had to model wearing MEAT. They wore meat panties, meat bras, meat.. whatever.
It should be obvious why this photo shoot disturbed me so deeply: dead cows were being treated as art. They were being completely and utterly objectified, and not one model refused to do this shoot. Some of them even enthusiastically wore their meat outfits and posed with the sides of beef as if they were merely props. Not once living, breathing cows.
I’ll give some of the girls a slight amount of credit–a couple of them were all “eew” about wearing/modeling with the dead cows, but not one of them allowed themselves to make the leap that this was the flesh of a dead cow they were so excited about wearing.
Ok, no surprises here, I suppose. Models and the modeling industry frequently involve fur, leather, wool, feathers, etc etc as fashionable items. So there is a history of animal products being used in fashion. It’s easy to dissociate yourself from something like that. (and it’s necessary if you want to be ‘fashionable’).
Like I said, this was not my number one qualm. This episode also served to reveal how horribly contradictory I’ve been. I’m a woman, but yet I never viewed this show and perpetuating the horrible truth of women being objectified. This photo shoot was a double whammy for me, I initially thought, because it’s objectifies cows/animals and it objectifies women (they were wearing meat; they were metaphors for being pieces of meat).
But then I really thought about it–it’s not a double whammy, it’s a freakin gigantoid whammy. One big one. Allow me to explain.
How can I be taken seriously as a proponent of animal rights when I don’t even view my own species’ genders as deserving of equal status?
Well, this isn’t exactly true. I do think that women deserve to be as equal as men in this society. But I wasn’t aware that my actions were belying this belief. I considered ANTM as one of my favorite shows–I didn’t like the whole model scene, but I always said that I watched it for the pictures.
I watched it for the pictures? This would be just like me saying ‘I watched it so I could see, firsthand, how women are used as a sexual object in order to sell something.’
Frankly, this thought repulses me now. I am completely and utterly disappointed in myself as a woman and as an animal rights activist.
Now you might think I’m being hard on myself. But if you think about it, the fact that I didn’t even notice what I was doing speaks volumes about the prevalence of this sort of behavior. Are we so content to be objectified that it seems natural to us, and is even marketed to other women? (as I assume the show is marketed to women). There are so many things wrong with the modeling industry in terms of how people view women (and how the ‘perfect woman’ is defined), that I can’t even get into it now.
Suffice it to say, I think with every ‘cycle’ that airs and the show increases in popularity, ANTM is taking a huge step backwards for women and how they should be viewed. So this isn’t just an animal right’s issue, it’s a women’s rights issue. And deep down, they’re both very similar–we’re all animals and we’re not to be exploited and used as if we were objects/products.
This is why I can’t watch America’s Next Top Model anymore.
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