Hopefully Britain’s Missing Top Model is an opportunity to discuss the inequality these disabled women face on a daily basis, as well as the inequality models (both disabled and able-bodied) face every day. It’s also an opportunity to expose the fashion industry and its photographers, agents, and editors and their ignorance. Marie O’Riordan, Marie Claire’s UK editor and one of the judges on the show, was the first to expose herself in a recent interview:
“When I first heard about the program, my immediate thought was would it all be women in wheelchairs. And I knew that if it was going to be some sort of freak show, I didn’t want to be involved. But I very quickly realized there are many disabled people who are not in wheelchairs, and that is just one of the many preconceptions we all hold about disability.”
I know the real world Ms. O’Riordan lives in—and sells to her readers—is heavily airbrushed, but she just realized that there are disabled people who are not in wheelchairs? And please, “women in wheelchairs” = “freak show”? I can’t wait to hear what the rest of her fashionable crowd has to say.
Oh, to trade a few seasons of polished Bachelors or oversexed Real World stars for a meaty show like this one. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect this show to shake the industry so much that the winner will go on to have an actual career once the cameras stop rolling. Nor do I expect people to suddenly realize that we are all beautiful regardless of whether our teeth are straight or our limbs are intact.
However, I do expect a lively conversation to start at the watercooler. Women with disabilities are typically absent in popular culture—apart from Paul McCartney’s ex, Heather Mills, a below-the-knee amputee appearing on Dancing with the Stars, I can’t think of a show with a female character in a wheelchair—so surely a few “realizations” will dawn. I do expect the fashion industry to be exposed and mocked, and maybe even slightly ruffled—though to date, the death of undernourished models has had little real affect. I do hope that a show like this will challenge us all to examine our own preconceptions, or rather misconceptions, of ability.
It won’t challenge our assumptions of “beauty,” because while each of these women is of varying ability, they are all strikingly beautiful with not a crooked nose or bumpy thigh among them. These ladies won’t need physical airbrushing, but I hope the BBC won’t airbrush out the catfights and snarkiness that we love about the modeling industry—thanks to Tyra’s insight—just to keep things touchy-feely. I also hope the next season of the show will truly challenge itself—and us too—by representing ethnic minorities, size eighteens, petites, women who’ve had a mastectomy, and women over forty—all real women who are also “missing” on the runway.
