A couple of days ago, Kate Moss said in an interview that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels is her motto, and I posted the sentence right away on Facebook. I found it beautiful in its own way as it is provocative; pointing precisely to the inner logic of today’s politics of the body.
When the furor of Kate Moss saying that how can she reached Germany, a couple of my friends got back at me asking if I really think posting that was a good idea, because it was always a motto anorectic girls cling on to. However, I think I like the sentence exactly for that reason. It is a dangerous sentence because it is interwoven with this subject. It makes us think about the way we live and understand life. That’s why I like it. And that’s why I always loved Kate Moss. Apart from being beautiful, the way she takes live makes me think.
Yes, there are anorectic people out there, and I had one anorectic among my friends and another one among my acquaintances. It is a horrible disease leaving you and anybody else around totally helpless. A person who is actually clear in his/her head, destroys herself/himself in front of your eyes and is actually willing to starve to death. 20 per cent of anorectic people die. They rather die than let loose the only control about the world they think they have.
So let’s face it, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels first of all describes a certain kind of power you feel when you overcome the inner self, despite of some people who think we shouldn’t talk about it. No. We should talk about it. More as there is a thin line between overcoming and destroying. Being on a diet can be fun, that’s why it is so dangerous.
Now, personally I think you should decide what you want to look like and then go with it. First of all, because a lot of bodies don’t look good when the person that wears it is thin. Secondly, it can be a subversive decision not to count calories and watch the fat and sugar.
That was the other thing I liked about the sentence. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels reveals that Kate Moss is not naturally thin. Well she is, but in a world where you can buy Gü even in a Tesco supermarket, you bet there is always something that tastes as good as skinny feels around the corner. Indeed Kate Moss thinks so, too, as her motto was accompanied by her saying: “You try and remember, but it never works.”
So all this assuring of models who eat normal is a joke. They fight. Yes they eat, but nearly all of them are constantly on a diet, whatever they tell you. Is Kate Moss really to blame for saying that? What is the furor all about? Is a diet an eating disorder? And are we discussing this issue with the same verve when we talk about premier league football players? Why has everybody a say with models while we discuss doping as a medical mistake? Politics of gender anyone?
Fashion is a sphere of beauty. It creates an ideal, and an ideal is never about the real world. As I like ideals, I am actually not sure whether models should look normal, or people should be capable of being more reflective. Fashion creates an image and this is something art did for centuries. Fashion is fiction. It uses real people for it and a lot of photoshop. But its industry is not less brutal than football.
Maybe instead of locating the discourse in the female body, we should consider making the process more transparent. Get magazines to cover the process with every shooting, and consider teaching the mechanisms of media as a curriculum in school. In modelling as in being a professional football player, only some bodies can be part of the production of beauty, and we should deal openly with this situation. This is not about what we all should look like, this is a mean of production.
In fact, I find it interesting that the discourse is ranting about the thin issue all the time while being tall is as important as thin but no one finds that too much of an exclusion. Clearly, the thin issue is where the politics of the body are happening today and meanwhile it reached the male body, too. But whatever. A diet is not going to make anyone more beautiful. Being confident will. Kate, thanks for bringing it up.
Well, I think the problem with Kate Moss saying that was mainly that she is an icon and many of those girls with eating disorders do look at her as a role model. They will pin her sentence to their mirrors and repeat to themselves that not eating is worth it.
Wenn man weiß, daß nichts gut schmeckt wie Dünnheit sich anfühlt genausogut, Digger, genausogut ein Heinz Strunk Satz ist und kein hip anorectic girl Satz, dann sieht die Sache MEINES ERACHTENS NACH auch schon wieder anders aus und bleibt nicht viel zu verteidigen und kann man nicht mal sowieso aufhören mit Ikonen, die irgendwelche Sätze sagen und das ist und bedeutet dann angeblich dann wer weiß was? weissu warum? Weil es immer wieder behauptet wird, u.a. von dir hier. Sonst würde das längstens in sich selbst versacken, versinken und verschwunden sein aus den Gehirnen unserer ansonsten fantastischen jungen Frauen. – Bidde.
Wenn man weiß, daß nichts so gut schmeckt wie Dünnheit sich anfühlt genausogut, Digger, genausogut ein Heinz Strunk Satz ist und kein hip anorectic girl Satz, dann sieht die Sache MEINES ERACHTENS NACH auch schon wieder anders aus und bleibt nicht viel zu verteidigen und kann man nicht mal sowieso aufhören mit sogenannten Ikonen, die irgendwelche Sätze sagen und das ist und bedeutet dann angeblich wer weiß was? weissu warum? Einfach: Weil es immer wieder behauptet wird, u.a. von dir hier. Sonst würde das längstens in sich selbst versackt, versunken und verschwunden sein aus den Gehirnen unserer ansonsten fantastischen! jungen Frauen. – Bidde.
Wie jetzt Heinz Strunk, Monika? ?
Mercedes, ich finde wenig Richtiges in Deinen Äußerungen. Gefährliche Äußerungen sind für sich genommen nicht gut, siehe z.B. den Sarranazi im Cicero. Kate Moss ist jetz doch auch eher nur Symptom, ohne dabei irgend einen gedanklichen Ansatz für Kritik oder auch nur Analyse zu liefern. Bitte denke noch weiter über dünne Körper und Körperpolitik nach, Du kommst da bestimmt noch auf interessantere Dinge! (Und trink vielleicht mal einen Haideboden von Umathum …)
ähh … Sloterdijk dazu im Cicero, Sarrazin vorher im Lettre International …
na, bei Heinz Strunk steht es auf dem Buch “Die Zunge Europas” drauf, ich glaube hinten auf dem Schutzumschlag. Entschuldige, ich hatte einen etwas rauhen Ton angeschlagen, das war ein Versehen. Ich war wohl betrunken.
p.s.
there´s no contradiction, it´s breaking the rules
Does really someone listens (and believes) to what the sex, drugs and rock’n'roll partygirl Kate Moss is saying?
I’m not quite sure of this…except the yellow press!
Anyone ever thought, that she might have said this to get more publicity and raise her market value?
Kate Moss might be thin and skinny, but she is not stupid and mechandises herself very well. (just remeber, that she got back into business, although being caught consuming cocain)
Prassito, the sad thing is, that most of the intelligent women believe in those things and help to keep it alive and going by mentioning it again and again and again, endlessly diffrent and endlessly the same. Perpetuum mobile of Frauenknast. Sie lieben ihren Knast so sehr, sie entbehrten allen Stützen, wenn die Glamour-Gitterstäbe (rules) plötzlich wegbrächen. Dann fallen sie auseinander, lösen sich auf. Haben nichts mehr.
Weg mit ihnen.
How you put it made me think of Oscar Wilde: “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” – even if the temptation might be not-eating. maybe. obviously no temptation peter sloterdijk ever had.
Interessant finde ich auch, dass das ja sowohl ein Konformismus- als auch eine Leistungs- und Protestantismusdebatte ist – under control, under control. Und zwar nicht seitens einer externen Diktatur, sondern einer internen. Jeder Mensch ist vor allen Dingen sich selbst ein Wolf und hier eben im Sinne von, wörtlich, Selbstzerfleischung. Kurzum: Moss argumentiert hier aus einer – aus deiner Perspektive vermutlich als kapitalistisch zu bezeichnenden – Kontroll- und Leistungsethik. Quizfrage: Findet die Revolution im Kleinen denn dann bei McDonald’s statt? Das wäre ja noch irrer.
Hey there,
this is bloody brilliant!
I wanted to write about “nothing tases as good as skinny feels” and the issue of anorexia in my sociology lecture. It would be nice, if you let me mention your writing.
Lemme know if you’re ok with it, I won’t copy anything, be sure of that. :)
cheers,
anna