Young, naive, and unsuspecting women are lured into the trade, the underbelly of fashion, with broken promises that eventually lead to shattered dreams, and oftentimes shattered lives. Welcome to the modeling industry.

Glossy magazine covers, fat checks, bright lights, big dreams, notoriety, and fame. There’s a good chance we’ve all thought about these things at some point in our lives. After all, the picture perfect lives of supermodels and celebrities are broadcast around us every day. And if you’ve got the height, the body type, and the looks, then you may have even fantasized about gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated or becoming a lingerie-clad Angel.

Why not, you think. The idea of your name being up in lights, or at least on the roster during fashion week is a dream that’s being sold hard and fast and not very fairly. In fact, parading down that runway dressed in designer duds may not be all it’s cracked up to be.

The modeling industry doesn’t always serve as a chance to play dress up, while having someone fuss over your hair and makeup. Nor does it mean you’ll be sailing away to an exotic location to a photo shoot by the sea. And even if it did, chances are the conditions and hours would be grueling and the pay would be paltry, sometimes even nonexistent.

As an emerging face trying to make a name for yourself, these conditions may even seem alright temporarily, but from the latest revelations that have been uncovered about the modeling industry, the abuse doesn’t stop there.

In addition to the crash diets, eating disorders, drugs, criticism, and an absolutely wrecked self-esteem, these women, and oftentimes, teens, are subject to additional forms of abuse and exploitation. The Business of Fashion claims that “the two biggest problems in the global modeling industry are the sexual harassment and financial exploitation of models.” Among the various forms of sexual abuse is unwanted touching, being pressured into having sex at work, and being asked to pose nude during casting or on the job without prior notice.

The op-ed goes on to say, “Of those who had experienced sexual harassment, only 29 percent reported it to their agencies; of those who did report harassment to their agencies, the vast majority indicated that their agencies did not see the problem.” Some agents were rumored to recommend their clients sleep with someone on the job in order to further their careers.

In an expose by CNN, Carolyn Kramer, a former agency executive, was quoted as saying, “When you’re a supermodel like Giselle or Christy Turlington you’re treated like royalty, but 99 percent of models are treated like garbage.” Kramer also took it upon herself to compare the industry’s labor abuses “to those faced by young factory workers at the turn of the century.” The stories about women being promised pay are a dime a dozen, like the Jamaican model who, despite being told she’d receive a $75,000 annual salary, only ended up receiving a few thousand dollars for three years of work while in New York. And in an even darker scenario, some women in Florida were victimized as part of a fake modeling scheme, drugged, and then used for pornographic films.

Why is this happening in the modeling industry?

“Under current federal and New York State law, independent contractors are not afforded the same protection from sexual harassment in the workplace as employees (the same is true of wage and hour protection),” reveals The Business of Fashion. Even though New York City law is supposed to protect independent contractors from sexual harassment, there is sometimes little that can be done to fight back due to the complicated hiring structure, therefore allowing misogyny and objectification to run rampant. From misclassification to federal law prevailing, loopholes are often found preventing women from successfully pressing charges for sexual harassment or wage theft.

What can be done to protect models now and in the future from rampant sexual harassment and financial exploitation?

Even those models who have “made it” so to speak, earning six or seven figure salaries annually, still face issues like receiving exorbitant miscellaneous charges from their agencies, as well as the use of their image without proper compensation, not to mention the sexual harassment they’ve probably been putting up with for years. If top models are also still facing this treatment, then the outlook can seem bleak.

Although former attempts have been thwarted by agencies, continuing to fight for unionization and government intervention is so important for the protection and safety of models. Furthering the causes of labor advocacy organizations, like Model Alliance, is necessary for raising awareness and bringing victims together. 

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Image of Striped Model via Shutterstock

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Ruin porn and the objectification of Detroit.

Can someone explain to me what, exactly, “ruin porn” is? Recently, it’s been linked to Detroit, most notably in Chrysler’s now-legendary Super Bowl ad. How is ruin porn, which Detroit-born-and-raised writer Paul Clemens describes in his new book Punching Out as “the arty delectation of Detroit’s destruction,” any different from Chilean Miners Porn? Or 2011 Egyptian Revolution Porn? Or Portland, Oregon, Porn? Anything worth shooting, it would seem, is potential pornography. Yet critics are slinging the ruin porn term around, conflating genuine interest and concern with insatiable horniness. What gives?

I understand that there is something of an exploitative aspect to the visual documentation of Motown’s decline, a rubbernecking yet relieved sentiment solicited and received by Gothic depictions of wreck and ruin – but provocative isn’t porno. Good photography commands pathos; great photography demands it, and right now, Detroit requires our attention. But how the act of paying attention got mixed up with masturbation is a mystery to me. Am I watching Google Porn every time I check Gmail? Are you? Please, dear reader, close your inbox and pull your hand out of your pants.

Detroit, Michigan, circa 2011, is the most emotive, pathetic, and photogenic subject in America right now. The city’s vacant lots, shuttered automotive plants, and abandoned houses are fascinating and horrifying, and we can’t turn away. But does insatiable consumer demand or instinctual human curiosity suddenly transform something into porn?

What’s more, the assumption that any art – verbal or visual – inspired by the Motor City is pornographic is a slap in the face to anyone who’s ever tried to affect positive change in the world via words or images; i.e., writers and artists. No one ever accused Solzhenitsyn of writing gulag porn or Margaret Mitchell of antebellum porn. Things aren’t so rosy in Detroit right now; Americans should see what’s happening to a great city.

Mother Jones derides Chrysler for utilizing “the cynical racism (or at least colonialism) of positioning Chrysler as a tough, gritty, 8 Mile-style brand that’s perfect for what marketers call the ‘urban core’ demographic; and using Detroit poverty porn to hawk [its] product while simultaneously trying to deride the media’s recent Detroit poverty porn.” (For the moment, we’ll set aside the incongruity that it’s okay for MoJo to mock Chrysler for perpetrating “poverty porn” out of one side of its mouth while promoting its own version out of the other.)

First of all, it’s incredibly naive to fault a failing (or failed) corporation’s attempt to re-brand and re-introduce itself to a new generation of consumers. True, Chrysler’s modus operandi over the last half-century seems to have been “How not to run a business,” and true, the ailing automaker should probably have been put to sleep and made to suffer the consequences of its managerial idiocy. But whether or not you think Chrysler deserved its $15 billion in bailout funds, the fact of the matter is that it did indeed receive them, ostensibly to keep manufacturing cars and to provide some kind of lifeline to the Motor City. And whether or not you think those new cars are classic Chrysler POS’s, the fact of the matter is that they need to be sold to someone. There’s an entire generation of Honda drivers to convert, yet Mother Jones expects Detroit to do so with tail fins, muscle cars, and depictions of Hank Greenberg-era Tigertown.

Secondly, the advertisement seeks to glorify Detroit, not wallow in its decline. There are no cheap Coney Island hot dog joints here, no bombed out buildings. “Imported From Detroit” promotes Motown as the city of Joe Louis; of the Larry Callahan & Selected of God choir; of Eminem. If that’s pornography, then so is this. Chrysler bet $9 million – a Super Bowl record – on their two-minute spot; it was seen by 111 million viewers during the most-watched spectacle in American television history, and as I write, the viral video has gotten more than 9 million hits on YouTube.  “Likes” outnumber “dislikes” by more than 20 to 1.  “Imported From Detroit” is easily the most discussed television advertisement since last year’s epic “Write the Future” campaign from Nike.

There’s no outcry over “Marilyn Porn” when Vanity Fair puts the long-deceased Ms. Monroe on its cover twice in two years (I’ve had magazines reject pitches because editors have deemed them too similar to articles published six years prior), yet there’s virtually no argument to be made about her contemporary newsworthiness (or lack thereof). Graydon Carter knows enough about magazines and marketing to give his customers what they want; is he a pornographer, too?

Image: JSFauxtaugraphy

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Our daily Joe is an affordable luxury for most of us, a daily necessity for many, and an obsession to some. In case you didn’t know, coffee is now in its third wave.

That means it’s now commonplace to hear coffee geeks in the hipster coffee bars that dot the coasts talk at length about the differences between Latin American and African coffees. It means that coffee descriptors now sound like wine adjectives. It means coffees are described as fruity, chocolatey, sweet, juicy, and bold, with flavors of honeysuckle, black currant and pear.

If you haven’t heard, the cognoscenti have deemed the dark roast that was in fashion in the 90s to be passé. If you now don’t profess to prefer a lighter roast, you’re not in the know. The reason: a lighter roast shows off each coffee’s unique characteristics.

All this obsessing about quality is good news for coffee drinkers, and, to a lesser extent, coffee farmers. Though today’s third-wave roasters are doing a wonderful job of elevating coffee from its status as a commodity crop, and paying higher prices to coffee farmers for truly great coffee, it’s good to remember that almost all coffee is produced in developing countries, while almost all consumption occurs in the industrialized world. And the way the trade is stacked, the numbers don’t pan out so well for the farmers.

We might not think twice about paying $3 or more per cup of high-end, directly traded coffee, but coffee farmers typically only see about 12 cents of that $3. (Much less per cup of typical mini-mart coffee in a Styrofoam cup). Sure the cost of living is lower in developing countries, but not that low. Consider that in Ethiopia (widely acknowledged to be the birthplace of coffee) farmers earn less then 50 cents a day. In years of low coffee prices, the coffee farmers don’t even receive enough to cover the cost of production, forcing many off their land.

So what can you do to make sure your daily pleasure doesn’t cause daily pain for some small farmer in Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Panama, Indonesia, or Guatemala? Learn to be more conscious of the coffee you drink and take at least some of the steps below. What’s good for farmers is better for the environment too. Farmers who know they have a viable future on their land are more likely to take good care of it by farming sustainably.

1. For a hard-hitting look at how the coffee industry exploits coffee farmers watch the award-winning documentary Black Gold.

2. Support farmer-owned coffee as the current best model for making sure farmers get a fair price.

3. The next best model for farmers is Direct Trade. This model gives farmers more for their beans and gives you the added value of traceability and a story behind the coffee.

4. Stuck at Starbucks? Go with one of the Fair Trade Certified™ offerings. At least Fair Trade guarantees farmers a minimum price plus premiums to invest in community projects.

5. As concerned about the environment as you are farmers? Go Triple Certified and save people, trees and birds in one fell swoop.

6. Know your roaster and its practices. Many go above and beyond buying quality coffee to do more for the environment or the people who grow the coffee. A few examples: Peace Coffee makes deliveries by bicycle (in Minnesota no less). Equator Coffees & Teas built new worker housing and installed clean-burning cookstoves for the workers who live on their farm in Panama. Ritual Roasters helped a producer build its own coffee mill.

7. Bring your own damn cup.

8. Lose the disposable filters. Use a French press and compost the coffee grounds.

9. Be aware that coffee, like any crop, is seasonal. Your coffee will be fresher and you’ll understand more about the farming process, and, by extension, the farmers.

10. Share your new-found knowledge with others, but don’t be a coffee snob. It’s tiresome.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Shannon Clark

*Full disclosure: I work as a communications consultant with HavenBMedia for two of the companies mentioned or referred to in this piece: Equator Coffees & Teas, and Pachamama Coffee Co-op, which produces Traceable Coffee (item 2 on the list).

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