The Dreamseller_ The Calling - Augusto Cury [60]
“I’m with you, chief. I don’t discriminate when it comes to women. I’ve dated every type.”
The audience burst into laughter. But we were so nervous already that we hushed Bartholomew.
“Pretend you’re normal, Bartholomew!”
The people were split by the dreamseller’s ideas. Some were enthralled, their mouths agape; others hated the ideas down to their last thread. Paparazzi began taking photos, eager to record the scandal of the year.
As the buzz from the crowd died down, the dreamseller lowered his voice to make an emotional request:
“I implore you, the brilliant designers, to love women, all of them, to invest in their mental health by using not just these unattainable body types to express your art. You may not make as much money as you otherwise might, but you’ll realize immeasurable gains. Sell the dream that every woman has a unique beauty.”
Some people applauded, including three international models to my right. Later we learned that models were exposed to a host of mental conditions. They were ten times more likely to be anorexic than the population as a whole. The system both enthroned and incarcerated them, and after a short career, it discarded them.
Three people booed the dreamseller. One of them threw a plastic water bottle at him, opening a cut over his left eyebrow, which bled profusely. We took him by the arm and asked him to stop talking, but he wasn’t intimidated. Wiping away the blood with an old handkerchief, he called for silence and continued. I thought: “There are many who hide their thinking for the sake of their public image; here’s a man who’s faithful to his ideas.” Then he offered a proposal that made our skin tingle:
“Most women in modern society don’t see themselves as beautiful. So in every clothing store and on every label there should be a warning, like on packs of cigarettes, that reads: ‘Every woman is beautiful. Beauty can’t be standardized.’”
These words got quite a reaction from the press. At the very moment he said them, a paparazzo photographed him from an angle that caught the upper half of his body and, in the background, the logo of the international clothing chain of the Megasoft Group.
His ideas about discrimination in fashion reminded me of when he told us: “Discrimination can be constructed in a matter of hours, but can take centuries to dismantle. A full century after Abraham Lincoln freed African-Americans from slavery, Martin Luther King Jr. was on the streets of major American cities, still fighting discrimination.” I kept asking myself, “Who is this man who makes these revolutionary proposals? Where does his knowledge come from?”
The dreamseller told the crowd that our existence can never be standardized. All of us experience life differently, from sex and the taste of food to our appetites, art, even beauty.
“What’s the normal frequency for having sexual relations? Every day? Every week? Any classification would generate serious distortions. What’s normal if not that which satisfies each person? Isn’t being satisfied enough?”
A stunningly beautiful international model named Monica, deeply moved by his speech, interrupted him and had the courage to say publicly:
“My whole life, all I knew how to do was strut, strut, strut down a runway. My world was the runways. I’ve been photographed by the best international photographers. My body has been on major magazine covers. I was raised to the top by the fashion world, but the same world that praised me cast me aside when I gained ten pounds. Today I have bulimia. I eat compulsively, then feel so guilty about it that I have to make myself throw up. My life is a living hell. I can’t even bear the taste of food. I don’t know who I am or what I love anymore. I’ve tried to kill myself three times.”
There were no tears in her eyes, none left to cry. The dreamseller, seeing the model