Living a model life

Tonight’s offering is a cry of frustration about the way women’s bodies are commodified to sell all manner of goods, services and ideas. The gendered violence of the advertising and entertainment industries serves to perpetuate this notion that women should seek the type of femininity that is weak, passive, vulnerable, and perpetually meeting an ever changing and impossible standard of beauty.

It is tiring.

The model woman
Laid out like a tray 
of fresh confections 
softly dusted to shimmer 
and entice. 
Any lines not erased are blurred and 
natural flesh cut away 
to make room for more product placement. 
She is the same woman every time 
even if her hair is shorter or eyes 
a different colour. 
Sometimes she appears to breach the fourth wall 
often she has no face at all. 
Because her face is not important
nor is her a name. 
She is the corpse in the opening scene 
of the movie or tv show. 
Or the non speaking spokesmodel 
for a new perfume or telco. 
She rides on the back of the bus, 
stands in shop windows, 
peers down from the billboard over the motorway
or from the cover of a magazine. 
She cannot be too rich or too thin 
wearing that luxury skin. 
She is everywhere: 
naked 
glowing 
youthful 
silent.