'Alternative' Models

So, Bizarre Magazine, a publication very keen on showing their alternative credentials at every opportunity, have ended their search for a cover star. They picked, out of the no doubt thousands of entrants, a slim, conventionally pretty girl who then celebrated her success by getting topless and lounging around a set in provocative positions for the winner’s photo shoot.

And well done to her. I'm not saying that being a model is easy. This is not a personal attack on her. She is a beautiful young lady and I wish her every success in the modelling career that she will no doubt now embark upon.

Nor is it an attack on Bizarre, although I will be drawing a lot of examples from them simply because I do actually read the magazine.

This is more of a wonder if alternative modelling in general is, well, all that alternative really.

Let’s start with what I see to be the main components of ‘mainstream’ modelling. The models are skinny to the point of being unwell. They are that kind of inoffensive, homogenised ‘pretty’ (they can’t be too striking if they’re trying to sell a product. It detracts from whatever it is they’re meant to be advertising). They are very, very sexualised.

All these are massive generalisations of course, but they are also the themes I notice the most in commercial modelling shots, and the ones that irk me the most.

Alternative modelling is meant to be a departure from this. Those who peddle these images often spout rhetoric against ‘blonde bimbos’ and ‘stick thin models’, but are the images actually all that different?

Most commercial alternative modelling (flyers, clothes modelling, the ones that end up in Bizarre) seem pretty similar to me. A vast, vast majority are slim, if not clinically chronically underweight. All the finalists for the Bizarre competition appeared to be no bigger than a size twelve. Very few of the girls I've seen on flyers would fill my bras. There are one or two examples, like the delightful April Flores who has graced Bizarre’s cover twice, who are bootylicious lassies, damn proud of it and look mighty lush while doing it. But they are still very much a minority. The ‘celebration’ around plus size model is testament to their rarity.

And then there’s the inoffensive looks. Inoffensive? I hear you question. But what about the ones with tattoos and piercings in leather corsets? Well, have you noticed that under their tattoos, piercings and pink hair they have very feminine, classically beautiful faces? If anything I'd say that there’s more pressure to appear feminine in alternative modelling than in mainstream shoots, perhaps as a combatant against the masculine body modification so many of them sport.

And now for the biggie; the very blatant sexualisation of these women. Really, does a woman have to be topless to be beautiful? Apparently so. There is so much scope out there, and many models use it to its full extent , to be artistic, but the commercial shots revert time and time again to an overly sexualised type. Putting a young woman in a leather corset and draping her over a tombstone does not make an image and less sexual that a playboy bunny in a bra and panties on a four poster bed.

Many would maintain that the various alternative scenes are a ‘safe space’ for women, but from where I'm standing it looks as if women are expected to be sexual objects for the camera just as much as anywhere else.

There’s some pretty heavy gender bias going on as well. Male alternative models are rare and those that are out there do not get anywhere even close the same exposure as their female counterparts. I'd be prepared to bet that proportionally there are less male alternative than male mainstream models. Is it because half naked men don’t shift the same number of copies as half naked women? Bizarre would seem to think so. I don’t remember there being a single male cover model in my entire four year readership of the magazine. Oh, and all of the shoots are sexualised to some extent even if it isn’t out and out nudity.

Sure this is putting the same pressures on girls in the alternative scenes as those involved more heavily in mainstream culture (God, I hate that word!)?

But, to end on a positive note, there are models out there who create wonderful artistic shots that don’t rely on distorted sexuality. Two very talented lassies are Lethal Gem and Violet Magenta. Go have a look see and get a flavour of what alternative modelling could be if it just dared to be a little more alternative.

http://www.myspace.com/violet_magenta_modelling
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/LethalGem

Peace and love xx