Making a Fantasy out of Thinness

The French government is closer than ever to passing a law banning the idealization of thinness. Pending the bill's approval in the French senate, one may be imprisoned for up to three years and fined $70,000 for having "incited excessive thinness." The authors of the bill, which directly targets pro-Ana and pro-Mia websites, also hope for it to have a spillover effect on the fashion industry, who have often taken the brunt of criticism for idealizing improbable and unrealistic images.

The problem however, is how does one define "incited excessive thinness?" Pro-Mia/Ana networks come under obvious condemnation, as their prescriptions for a healthy body and contented life drift into medical malpractice, however to charr the industry of beauty as a whole - from advertising to fashion to cosmetics - for pushing an improbable and at times impossible aesthetic-world-order seems somewhat absurd.

To what extent can the public legally condemn the individual's will to aspire to an ideal such as beauty? Granted, this ideal - beauty - is tempered by shifting cultural and societal norms and is therefore relative, however, its relativity is by virtue what makes beauty relevant.

In the recent past, the ideal Western woman was more robust, voluptuous, with a lot of time on her hands in between debutante balls and tea parties. Now she's been liberated from her heavy garments and thrown into the chaotic frenzy of bourgeois economics, where she must be more capable - mentally and physically - to take on the challenges of the world. At the same time as delimiting the bounds of the pleasure principle (more sex, more fun), society has rerouted the asceticism of monotheistic religion (no sex, no fun) and sublimated it into our five day work week. We forbid ourselves to eat carbs and instead consume our partners' bodies.

And so today, everywhere we look, a slim bodice - two-dimensional - eyes us from all perspectives of the urban landscape; threatening you with their body, their face. It is a body and a face that does not consume, perhaps nourishment, nor is consumed by you, but however, which consumes you in its very ideological nature. That is, the image of the body totalizes you - the audience (the socio-economic consumer) - it envelops your whole being and casts you back out into the world, somewhat more existentially fulfilled - if not actually physically - than before the rendezvous.

At some point or another we decided that God was the "idea" of "impossibility". That to put faith in God was to aspire to the unattainable impossibility. And at some point Kant equated the ideal of beauty with God; unattainable beauty, the presence of which aspires towards great things impossible or not.

Images of the impossible have always haunted human nature. They are the logical images springing forth from our ids and superegos, as we fantasize ourselves and each other. Why not be caught up in that wave of a dream which sweeps you out to the heavenly bodies and places you inside your the depths of fantasy?

However, the media is consistently called upon to return to Earth; to ground their messages in reality and portray believable images. One affirming response came from Nivea who, for one campaign, sought everyday-women to market their brand. It was heralded as a brave and pioneering move by a veteran beauty corporation. However, noticeably, since their gallant effort, everyday-women models have seemingly dried up.

But who wants to aspire to everydayness, to blandness. To mediocrity. What kind of bland escapist offers up reality as an ideal? This is why consumerism has done so well to learn from religion. One must put hope in the unattainable, so that the ever grinding process of perfectionism can continue. The slow grind of which deters us from death; if not, then at least for a moment.