Campaigning MP Valérie Boyer, a member of Nicolas Sarkozy's
UMP party, has put forth another controversial bill to address the role of the fashion industry media in portraying healthy body images. Boyer, who wrote a government report on anorexia and obesity, is currently proposing
"health warnings" on digitally altered photographs of people, stating that the image was "digitally enhanced to modify a person’s body image." The previous bill supported by Boyer and others came in April 2008, when France's lower house of parliament passed
a bill that would make it a crime to promote "excessive thinness" or extreme dieting,. The bill would empower judges to punish with prison terms and fines of up to €45,000 any publication (including blogs), modeling agency, or fashion designer who "incites" anorexia. That bill, which followed closely after
key members of the French fashion industry signed a government-backed charter,
came under fire from fashion designers and some politicians. French fashion and politics weren't at the front of this effort, with
Madrid's fashion week turning away underweight models in 2006, facing concerns that girls and young women were trying to copy their rail-thin looks and developing eating disorders.
posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 23, 2009 -
37 comments
"Normally subcultures in Australia are taken from other countries and just reproduced here.
Sharps or sharpies are an Australian specific subculture, developed in Australian specific conditions." Sharpies were members of suburban youth gangs in Australia mainly from the 1960s to 1980s,
particularly in Melbourne, but also in Sydney and Perth to a lesser extent. "Everybody was in a gang. Everybody. Every second street there was a gang. Um --
there was like you were either in a gang or you were the victim." The time of the sharpies is part of Melbourne folklore. Forget JFK. Where were you when Frankston erupted after the
AC/DC concert in 1977? While the violence was legendary, so were
the fashion and the music.
Lobby Loyde and the
Coloured Balls,
Buster Brown,
Skyhooks, Fat Daddy,
Hush. And nobody
danced like the sharpies (which resembles
skanking of
some sort).
Anyone over forty who grew up in Melbourne has at least one story to tell about the sharpies (PDF). Some stories are about
gang leaders with missing teeth and shit-eating grins, while others
look back with some sort of fondness.
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 14, 2009 -
23 comments
