World Forbidden From Looking At Pretty Things
First, they came for photoshop, and I said "good luck putting a magazine together." The American Society of Magazine Editors may put together a panel that will brainstorm some "best-practice guidelines" for digital manipulation of photographs in our glossies. Not that they'd ban it, of course! They say they just don't want readers to be misled. We say SLIPPERY SLOPE. Because now, in France, they're taking this to its logical conclusion: they're banning pretty people. Or skinny people, anyway.
The AP: "The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness." Incite thinness? How does one even do that? Catchy slogan? Throw a salad through the window of a pizza place? What happened to liberté!
Now the bill heads to the Senate. They say it mainly targets pro-anorexia websites and message boards, but the fashion industry is worried about the language of the bill. Of course, they don't have to worry about imprisonment, as no jail can hold such gorgeously thin people.
Still, this represents yet another attack on the American Way of Life, which is inciting extreme thinness while acting on delicious processed foods.