In an ode to bankrupt ideals, South Korean fashion label Lewitt commissioned a short film (now yanked from every site I checked) that featured model Abbey Lee Kershaw fleeing from an unidentified danger and throwing herself off a roof. She is then shown falling over and over, in slow motion, wearing a different outfit with each fall. It’s done in a dreamy, romanticized way that is supposed to evoke a sense of “Ohh I want that”.

The problems with this are many fold. First, it is another attempt by the fashion industry to glamorize violence against women… again. Somehow this poor waif-like creature who commits suicide to escape whatever peril she is in, is supposed to be envied because she’s wearing must-have outfits. Hmm yes I want to wear what a dead woman is wearing – tres chic! We’ve seen this over and over in the past. The most egregious was the “murder as fashion” segment of an America’s Top Model episode.

Second, in doing a bit of research before hitting the keyboard, I discovered South Korea has the 8th highest suicide rate in the world, the second highest (just a hair under Mainland China) in female suicides. You would think, or hope, a company from a country rocked by numerous high profile suicides – including one of the country’s top models, Daul Kim – would show just a bit more common sense. Compassion is never going to happen, common sense is all we can hope for.

Daul Kim’s sad death at the age of 20 seems to have no effect on the people who treat women like nothing more than cattle ready for the slaughter. The fashion industry is not solely responsible for Kim’s death in Nov 2009; she was haunted by many demons that were aggravated by her career. Nor are they solely responsible for the high rate of suicide within South Korea. HOWEVER, they do bear responsibility for exploiting women and creating monumentally unrealistic visions of beauty that push girls and women to extremes to meet this phantom of beauty. The unending stream of warped images from the advertising and fashion industry must have an effect. We can’t simply say don’t watch them or worse don’t pay attention to them because this is hopelessly naive.

Blog after blog exposes the over photo-shopped models who have had limbs moved into positions that are anatomically impossible, breasts air brushed away (or in one case moved so low they were sitting just above the poor woman’s navel), thinned so badly the women look like sick bobble heads, belly buttons removed (just what is the industry’s obsession with belly buttons?), elongating arms and legs to the point the women resemble something out of a sci-fi movie, fingers elongated to such an extreme I wonder if the people doing the work even know what a female body looks like. If they want clothes hangers, stop the hypocrisy and put the damned clothes on hangers. Stop redesigning the human body to suit these warped views, and start showing women that come in all shapes, all sizes.

The industry bears a great responsibility for exploiting the notion that violence and fear is glamorous. That somehow brutalizing the vulnerable and weak is acceptable, even envied. I’ve used the term bankrupt ideals before, but it is the only phrase that can fully explain an industry that celebrates self-abuse and violence. No other industry would get away with promoting this type of agenda. Why do they get away with it? Because the world idolizes everything the industry does. They are the neo-gods of the modern world. Legions of magazines drool over every design, and quote even the most inane blatherings from designers who live in a world where they can abuse the female image and be rewarded for their efforts. They seemed to have forgotten Hubert de Givenchy’s statement on fashion, “The dress must follow the body of a woman, not the body following the shape of the dress.”

We’ve endured “heroin chic”, size zero or go home, designers who show open contempt for the female body in their battle against “plus size” models, murder as a fashion statement and now this. When is enough, enough?

There is nothing wrong with wanting tall, willowy models to showcase your work. There is something wrong with photo-shopping the models until they look like they are about to die from malnutrition or redo their bodies to suit a perverse image of what they think the female body should be. There is something wrong with using violence and emotional desperation to sell a warped image of beauty. There is something wrong with an industry that hectors it’s employees (and yes models are employees) to such an extent that anorexia and bulimia are the bywords for employment.

A remedial course in anatomy should be mandatory before anyone is allowed to work in either the fashion industry or advertising (kissing cousins in maintaining high standards of stupidity). This won’t happen until the world stops treating everything the fashion industry does with such reverence. They are employers who exploit their workers and their audience.

Suicide in South Korea
Frockwriter’s blog on the subject
Photoshop Disasters blog they spotlight the entire advertising industry’s misuse of over-touching photos.

It’s never a good idea when stupidity and greed marry, it inevitably ends up in a lawsuit. Take for instance the woman in Utah who walked onto a busy highway and was hit by a car. Who does she blame? Herself? Oh silly reader, you should know better by now. Of course she isn’t to blame. It was the driver on the highway she strolled out on and Google Maps for supplying her with the information:

As a direct and proximate cause of Defendant Google’s careless, reckless, and negligent providing of unsafe directions, Plaintiff Laren Rosenberg was led onto a dangerous highway, and was thereby stricken by a motor vehicle

Yes the main plaintiff is Google Maps because it didn’t warn her it could be dangerous stepping out onto a road – busy or otherwise. Yes, it was a newsflash to me that you need to look both ways and use judgment before crossing the road, but I’m funny that way. No where on the Google Maps page does it say the path shown is safe or traffic free. It is assumed the user should use certain amount of caution regardless of the route. Simply because the path has been supplied by Google Maps, does not mean the user does not have to exercise due care and caution. The main question that should be asked of this person is “do you normally step onto a road/highway without looking”?

An element of personal responsibility comes into this entire sorry episode. Ultimately it is the plaintiff’s responsibility to look both ways before crossing the road or choosing to walk along a busy highway. It is not Google’s responsibility to hold her hands. They made no promises the route was traffic free. They simply supplied a path from point A to point B. If she had looked at a paper map and followed the same route would she sue Rand McNally? Is she going to sue BlackBerry for displaying the route?

As a user of Google Maps, I am rather ticked off. Never in my wildest dreams would I blindly follow a set of instructions. I use the route as a reference only. I wouldn’t walk out into traffic, I wouldn’t walk off (or drive off) a bridge as happened to some, I would not drive into a corn field because the map said to. While I was researching this story, I was shocked by the number of people who wrote Google was sued for giving bad directions. No Google did not give bad directions. Google did what it was asked to do – supply a pedestrian route. It was not asked to supply a route that was car free. The user opted to suspend common sense and put the onus for her safety onto the shoulders of everyone around her.

Perhaps Google Maps should be suing her for bad publicity and egregious use of their mapping tool.

Is it my imagination or is this one of the single stupidest observations made this decade? I know, I know, there is a lot of competition for this coveted award. But seriously, what is this man smoking that makes him think this? Has he not heard of tectonic plates? Movement of the earth’s crust? No, logic is asking too much. It’s easier to blame women.

Now that I’m on this rant, why is it always the woman’s fault? What about men taking responsibility for their actions? Maybe men should be locked up because they are so incredibly weak they can be corrupted by nothing more than a wanton glance from a woman. Women must be incredibly powerful if they can lead men astray AND cause earthquakes with a flutter of their eyelashes. Oh look we can also bake cakes, beat off home invaders, wash the dishes, corrupt the morals of young men and leap buildings in a single bound.  Hmmm maybe if we put our minds to it we could make narrow minded bigoted misogynists spontaneously combust. Concentrating… concentrating… damn… didn’t work.

A spokesperson would only confirm that six jobs “were impacted.”

I pulled it from a story I found over at the CBC website.  What happened to plain speak?  I’m sorry, the jobs were not impacted! This useless verbiage is nonsense. Check the definition from Oxford dictionary:

• adjective 1 (of a tooth) wedged between another tooth and the jaw. 2 (of a fractured bone) having the parts crushed together

Yes, losing your job is painful, but I’m reasonably sure the person(s) did not have their parts crushed. People who use phrases like “were impacted” show a couple of things: a woeful ignorance of the meaning of the words; a ridiculous desire to make themselves sound intelligent. Sorry, but the use of impacted here is idiotic.

How about six jobs were affected? Or is clarity to simplistic?

In case you don’t lurk in all the wrong places, TLC (formerly a respected TV station that touted itself as The Learning Channel) has degraded into a “reality” focused network that glories in exploiting the vulnerable. I use the term ‘reality’ knowing full well what the public is being served has little to do with the truth and everything to do with a marketing behemoth.

Doubt what I’m saying? Then explain the late and noxious child labour show Jon and Kate Plus 8′s  24 hour coverage of those poor kids- all so the parents could have their 15 minutes of fame. The spectacular implosion of the Gosselin marriage and accusations of child labour violations points to a serious problem with shows like this. Sorry, but no network should be following any family with children around for “edutainment”.

The fact the network pays the parents to put their children on TV so the world can live vicariously through the family’s ups and downs, to me is a violation of child labour laws and decency. The children have no privacy. Imagine growing up with the knowledge that strangers know the most intimate parts of your life – everything from potty training to emotional meltdowns.  It was my misconception that parents were supposed to protect their children, not exploit them. TLC has a glut of this type of  show. It’s one thing for adults to willingly participate in one – although it has become increasingly obvious that the networks prey on the mentally vulnerable to increase their ratings – but an entirely different matter for adults to sign up children to participate. Now that the cameras are gone from the Jon & Kate household, Kate has said the children are upset that the cameras are all gone. The fact this woman things this is bad – not the cameras being taken away, but the children upset at their leaving – indicates a cold hearted view of her children as commodities, not toddlers. This woman has NO concept of personal responsibility and is in it for what she can get: “society has a responsibility to help with the children, since modern medicine promotes the use of fertility drugs, which can lead to multiple births”. Hey Kate, how about you take some responsibility for your decisions.

This leads me to another of  TLC’s baby bootie shows – the Duggar clan’s 18 and counting… actually it’s 19 now. Yes 19 children all on TV so people can gawk at them and the parents can keep popping out children (in an already overburdened world) in an irresponsible manner.  The Duggars claim they are just doing what God would want them to do – repopulate the entire earth. Don’t hand me any of that nonsense about the family paying their own way blah blah… they are getting paid to be on TV – if they weren’t getting a handsome paycheque, I wonder how they would be paying for all these children. You wanna bet they are getting big help from a variety of corporate sponsors? They are also using this show as a vehicle to promote their “Financial Freedom” seminars and their book.  More fruits of child labour.

First, this cannot be healthy for the mother – she’s in a permanent state of pregnancy. 19 children? Mother Duggar must be worn out. It’s not like they don’t believe in birth control – they used it early in their marriage. But they say “we committed to God that we would leave the timing and amount of children in His hands.” Not only is God busy helping football players win games, he’s now busy working as birth control for families who refuse to take on the responsibility. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with people who use God as an excuse for their own excesses. They are as useful as parents who use their children as props for a TV career. I think what annoys me the most, is anyone who dares criticise the Duggars is labeled anti-Christian or self-righteous. Sorry, but using children like this is wrong. Don’t care what your reasons are, putting them in the glare of such intense scrutiny cannot be healthy for their mental growth.