Should Modelling Agencies Hire 'Fat' Models?

I had the pleasure, last night, of participating in a debate on the motion implied above. I had prepared in advance arguments on both sides which I'll adumbrate below.

Still finding myself made mildly off-balance by the need to be able to passionately argue on two fronts, not necessarily at the same time, I had prepared most thoroughly on the affirmative side.

With all good questions - as this one is - it seems there are enlightening, if not persuasive responses on both sides. Still, when the debate came I was irked that our team was asked to argue against the proposition. We won, however, and it was encouraging to know that at least one of my arguments below did carry itself well.

It also shows, encouragingly I hope, how much there could be to say before you even can assert much perspective on the fashion and body-image business.

When I received word of the event tonight, not realising the 'TH' it referred to meant 'This House,' I spent a little time considering what could possibly go with 'T' and 'H' in context. It turns out my mind congealed around 'Thinspiration Hitlerisms,' I do not know why.

As I thought about it, it seems all the more fitting.

The motion tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is that “This House would force modelling agencies to hire 'fat' models.”

The central question for the other side must therefore be “why should they not be forced?” They might try to present an economic case, perhaps more specifically in the capitalist sphere.

On the surface this might seem a sensible strategy: after all, modelling agencies are private companies, why should they not be able to choose who they hire?

Fairly quicky, we begin to question the virtues of a free market. Should the government be able to exert any power over these companies? While the practices of National Socialism in Germany might make a good case for capitalism & democracy, they make a fairly bad one for completely free markets, by showing us the flipside result of entirely unshackled government. They and the people both need to wield power over each-other to preclude unjust behaviour.

Otherwise you can end up with things like institutionalised eugenics programs. The other side will need to demonstrate how they aren't – even on a less deadly, but a more subtle, and indeed subversive, scale – endorsing the creation of a “master race.”

A kind of eugenics amenable to market forces. Encouraging unrealistic body images at the expense of many other people's mental well-being and physical health, as aligned as the two so often are. The thought makes my flesh crawl.

But it happens. Researchers from the London School of Economics, alma mater to a respectable 17 Nobel Laureates, recently found that people exposed to fewer images of ultra-thin people were less likely to develop eating disorders.

Eugenics is a good place for me to start, because it can lead us to realise that the other side's position is a misunderstanding of, and an insult down to the very core of our being, and something we share with all of earth's living things, our genes.

Darwinism, thanks to the economist Herbert Spencer – and admittedly Charles Darwin himself must take some blame – is often misunderstood through it's most familiar phrase “Survival of the Fittest.” Catchy, but not terribly accurate. When a lion looks for a gazelle to eat on the African savannah, it is not scouting for the stronger members of a herd, but the weakest. It's looking for a quick feed, not to waste energy.

A more incisive – if not ideal – interpretation, is essentially that nature favours survival of those animals that are not the weakest.

A subtle yet important difference, similar to how “common” is different from “not uncommon,” which could also include all the things that are neither common nor uncommon. I'll let you draw your own venn diagrams.

The ability of modelling agencies to turn away “fat” models is an embodiment of this very fallacy in institutional form.

I know that some guys will mistakenly think that, if a girl looks at him, then they must be attracted. Girls, does it not instead mean that you're just not repulsed? Social signals are mistaken easily enough, without our institutions inculcating poor judgement. Yet this is exactly what such a 'free market' modelling agency can achieve.

Reminiscent of the Nazis, encouraging of misunderstandings about our nature. I guess some would call these the same thing.

The lovely irony about modelling is that, currently, the people who are selected for it would tend to look good in anything (often even less than anything). Doesn't this suggest that it's really the fashion that is important?

Fashion is not entirely utilitarian: keeping us warm, and so on, it also strives to hide imperfection. That is the essence to which it is reduced most profoundly in haute couture or high-end fashion. Wouldn't models better demonstrate this contrast by being even just a little less 'perfect'? Our side says they shouldn't need to be 'perfect' (if there is such a thing), and in all likelihood, the market would too.

Need I any more reasons to beg to propose the motion that stands in our name?

Auxilliary Arguments For

• A previous winner of Holland's Next Top Model recently also won a lawsuit against an agency that prematurely canceled her contract, saying she had a “Nice Face but a Fat Ass.” Since the courts tend to reflect public sentiments, does this not show us that the cultural zeitgeist abhors such corporate behaviour?
• Giving more force to why we should pay attention to this, consider portraits of women a few centuries ago. Many were very full bodied. This shows how much beauty itself is culturally dependent, and more specifically, suggestive that it is malleable.
• The other side could argue that it requires us to better understand behaviour and the treatment of disorders like anorexia nervosa. Shouldn't we prefer prevention to the perhaps more politically expedient but costly 'cure.'
• The job is a matter of competence moreso than it is one of beauty.
  • If a model is competent, they should have a chance.
  • Here we approach the territory of the 'affirmative action' debate.
    • In that we place more value on learned behaviours than hereditary inheritance.
    • Is the other side confusing equality of opportunity for equality of outcome? If they're competent, shouldn't they be able to get the job, their behaviour and market conditions determining whether they keep it?
      • Is hiring the problem, isn't it ongoing?

Arguments Against

• All other private companies have the right to choose who they hire, why should modelling agencies be a special case?
• The market shows us examples of extremely slim models, and those of a kind of polar opposite plumpiness. So, why is there noone exploiting a sub-culture in the middle, or is it because there is no such niche?
• If “fat” people are allowed in, where do you draw the line? What if the elderly start petitioning for their own placings with such agencies? If an existing model has an arm amputated, should they always be able to retain their job? Should an agency ever be forced to hire the elephant man?
  • Can deploy the earlier irony here, mentioning that “to see this more clearly, consider who you would most not want to see in a photo shoot. Airbrushing after all has it's limits. In practice, you can only do so much in post.”
  • If you preclude agencies from adapting to market forces, and lay upon them such criteria, may you inadvertently cause them to become inefficient versus their competitors?
  • What if there is a competing agency in another country with more lenient statutes? Would this not give them an unfair advantage over the regulated agency?
  • Is a country hurting this sector of the economy by enforcing such regulations?
  • Companies are legally recognised as individual entities. In affirming people's individual liberties here, do not you deny the liberties of companies? On what basis are you giving preference here?
  • Aside: If this side would say that hiring is not the problem but maintaining an ongoing relationship with workers, different country employment laws could unfairly impact competition: for example, in some countries it is easier to terminate employment than others.
• In forcing agencies to take on certain people, the other side would not be attacking all the important causes of the negative consequences they suggest. Are the media not at all culpable, since they will be the ones going to these agencies looking for workers. Does the agency not have a responsibility to give their clients what they want?
  • And what if, given such regulations the other side would impose, these media outlets instead decide to hire independent models, those without agents, or indeed outsource their photo-shoots and recordings overseas? In these ways they could easily work around such regulations, and at the same time jeopardise local businesses.
• Concede that current trends have the unfortunate effect of higher rates of anorexia nervosa. Doesn't this compel us to better understand human behaviour and the treatment of such disorders? Research in this area could lead to advances in others that formerly seemed unrelated: this is often the consequence of scientific research. Einstein's general relativity spurred the development of GPS, to provide one example.

As a short debriefing, I have concluded that the motion is worded somewhat unfortunately, in that while it would be a good first step to follow, if such regulations were not enforced across the board - encompassing too the clients of these agencies in the media - they would be fairly impotent to actually have the impacts the affirmative side means to suggest of them. Since otherwise people could seek out modelling 'havens,' avoiding said regulations.