France takes a stick to the thinness
April 18, 2008 |
French women not only don’t get fat they fade away. First the book now the law! France has always been fond of social control legislation. Strict privacy and defamation laws and laws protecting cultural amenities right down to ensuring irregular verbs stayed a regular part of the lingua franca.
Now another unenforceable law is about to hit the books. Judges are to enforce laws which ban inducement of excessive thinnes on blogs, websites and ads. Never a problem I have been inidced to have. What will be too thin? Perhaps the honourable beaks will have a body mass index, where anybody a size above Kate Moss is overweight and many end up being obese, when checking out blogs and ads.
Let the body image police loose. It has got to be a lot easier than looking parents in the eye and say “So what are you doing you dopey gits” (or the French equivalent).
The LA Times article is quite detailed but wrong in part. It says:
In 2006 the international fashion world was shaken by the deaths of two models, one Uruguayan, the other Brazilian. They had literally starved themselves to death, the Uruguayan by living on a diet of lettuce and soda, the Brazilian by eating only apples and tomatoes for three months.
The Uruguayan model died of a heredity heart condition.
Yet another snub for Freedom of Speech, even if it is stupid.
