The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [58]
It set for them the most cowardly and underhanded trap. Instead of extolling their intelligence and obvious sensitivity, it began to exalt the female body as never before in history. It was used tirelessly to sell products and services. They started to feel special. It seemed as if modern societies were trying to make up for millennia of rejection and intolerance. The dreamseller paused to take a breath.
Staring at the immense, colorful temple of fashion, he became outraged and in a loud voice began inviting people to talk about what was so great about the latest fashions. Nothing could be odder for someone dressed like him. But, since the fashion world makes room for the eccentric, they all thought he represented some designer rebelling against conventions. We felt out of place seeing such finely dressed people around us. Some of them recognized him.
He quickly began a discourse about his controversial ideas:
“When women came to feel they occupied the throne of the male-dominated system, the fashion world locked in on the most subtle stereotype.” And he recited the number “two,” deeply saddened.
I didn’t know where the dreamseller was heading with this. I knew that stereotypes are a sociological problem. The stereotype of the crazy person, the addict, the corrupt politician, the socialist, the bourgeois, the Jew, the terrorist, the homosexual. We use stereotypes as a vile standard to brand people with certain behaviors. We don’t evaluate the content of their character; if they show certain characteristics, we immediately imprison them behind the bars of a stereotype, classifying them as junkies, corrupt, unstable.
But what does the beautiful world of fashion have to do with stereotypes? The women were free to wear whatever they wanted, to buy any clothes they fancied, and have the body they desired. I didn’t understand why the dreamseller was so concerned. Nevertheless, the more he spoke, the more I was impressed.
“What a crime that what the fashion world has stereotyped as ‘beautiful’ is nothing more than a genetic accident.”
Bartholomew wasn’t sure what the dreamseller was talking about.
“Chief, is that stereotype expensive?” he asked, thinking it was some kind of clothing. The dreamseller told him:
“Its implications are extremely expensive,” he explained. “To maximize sales and create an ideal image for women, the fashion world began using the bodies of uncommonly thin young women as the epitome of beauty. One young woman out of ten thousand with a very thin body and exceedingly well-formed face, hips, nose, bust and neck became the stereotype of beauty. What consequences that had for the collective consciousness . . .”
More and more people were gathering around. After a brief pause, he continued:
“The genetic exception became the rule. Children looked to their Barbie dolls for direction, and adolescent girls turned runway models into an unattainable standard of beauty. That process engendered a compulsive quest for the stereotype, as if it were a drug, in hundreds of millions of women. Women, who were always more generous and supportive than men, turned on each other without realizing it. Even Chinese and Japanese women are mutilating their anatomy to come closer to the beauty of Western models. Did you know that?”
I didn’t know that, but how could he? How could someone completely outside of fashion be so well informed about it? Suddenly, he interrupted my thoughts by uttering the number “three,” and a moment of sorrow washed over his face.
He continued by saying that such a distorted model of beauty had sunk into the collective unconscious, imploding women’s self-image and committing an act of terrorism against self-esteem. In the past, stereotypes didn’t have serious collective consequences because we weren