Tag Archives: exploitation

Vogue Model Exposes Financial, Physical & Exploitation in the Fashion Industry

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the model manifesto, modelling, fashion industry, exploitation,

I was interested to see this book on the modeling industry. I have worked as an actor and I have also done modeling in the past. There are no words for how much I hated working as a model. I was never actually a model, but the way women are treated is awful. On the other side, I have covered London Fashion Week many times. Seeing how thin and young the models were always tugged on my conscious. 

Leanne Maskell is a warrior. This brave book she has written should be read by every model and everyone who works in the fashion industry. It should indeed become a manifesto. Bravo to Leanne. I hope she sells millions of copies of this book. 

The Life of a Model: Physical, Financial and Emotional Exploitation

Vogue model releases an A-Z anti-exploitation manual for the fashion industry

Why this book matters:

  • Exploitation has become accepted in the industry, with 29.7% of models being inappropriately touched on a shoot and 28% of models facing pressure to sleep with someone at work.
  • Over half of all models start working before they are 16, yet America is the only country to legally enforce breaks, chaperones and limit working hours. The lack of restrictions led to 14-year-old model Vlada Dzyuba working herself to death in 2017.
  • The pressure on models to lose weight and the constant rejection from clients can leave them vulnerable to mental illness, with 31% suffering from eating disorders and 68% from anxiety and/or depression.
  • Models face intense financial exploitation, with hidden contracts signed on their behalf meaning agencies in the UK take as much as 45% commission and can charge required expenses such as transport, personal trainers, nutritionists and hairdressers to the model without their prior knowledge or consent.
  • Modelling can be very dangerous, with 77% of models said they had been exposed to alcohol or drugs while on a job and 50% exposed to cocaine.

Sixteen hour working days, forced onto starvation diet plans, waiting months to be paid, no changing rooms, hair bleached beyond repair, made to strip naked at work, swallowing cotton wool soaked in water to curb your appetite – this is the ugly truth behind the life of a model.

 

Leanne Maskell is the author of The Model Manifesto, an A to Z anti-exploitation manual to the fashion industry which aims to educate current and aspiring models on how to find success and avoid the pitfalls of physical, financial, and emotional exploitation.

 

The book’s advice covers essential topics every model needs to know including: finding the right agency, creating a portfolio, understanding tax, working aboard, the role of social media, avoiding hidden agency expenses and knowing your own legal rights.

 

Leanne Maskell, author, Vogue model and activist.

 

Leanne started modelling at the age of thirteen, working for clients such as Vogue and London Fashion Week. Now, with 13 years of experience working regularly for clients such as ASOS, Amazon and New Look, she has created a book to give models the information she wished she had been provided with throughout her career.

 

While she loved her career, she frequently suffered from exploitation, including two men changing her into tights on a shoot when she was 13, having her drink spiked, being heavily pressured into shooting revealing imagery and being sent to a hotel room for a “casting” for escorts by her agency. The cost of Leanne’s successful career was suffering from anorexia, bulimia and severe depression.

 

Leanne empowered herself by studying Law at University and has combined her legal and modelling experience to empower other models in the hope that they do not encounter the same pitfalls as she has. Whilst writing The Model Manifesto, she created policies to improve the modelling industry which has led to a legal career advising on immigration law & mental health law policy.

 

“The Model Manifesto has been written to protect the 99% of models that don’t make it big – the ones who are treated as disposable objects. It also aims to educate those who wish to be models on how to avoid exploitation, empower themselves and enjoy the benefits of the job.” – Leanne Maskell

 

The Model Manifesto by Leanne Maskell is out 02 May 2019 and is priced at £14.99. To find out more go to: www.themodelmanifesto.com

Lovelace DVD Review | Film

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lovelace film reviewI have (proudly) never seen Deepthroat. Neither am I a fan of, nor watch porn, but even I know who Linda Lovelace is. I also have to say that I was deeply uncomfortable when, prior to this film being released, topless pictures of Amanda Seyfried were released to the press. This film is about a women who was raped, exploited and forced into porn; so a film about a women being exploited, which is promoted by a women being exploited is just uncomfortable. So it was with trepidation that I decided to review it.

To be fair, I think the film is good and harrowing. Showing Linda Lovelace as the victim I believe she was. The script is great, the acting is top-notch and the film does justice to the storyline. But I do think the underwater shot of Amanda Seyfried swimming in just a pair of pants was unwarranted. More thought should have been given in a film which is about rape, porn and exploitation. Some of Lovelace is very hard to watch, without giving away too much, Lovelace’s abuseive husband, Chuck played brilliantly by Peter Sarsgaard, beats her, rapes her and even sells her. He’s the one who gets her into porn, almost destroying her in the process. A brilliant and almost unrecognisable Sharon Stone plays Mum, a religious, traditional woman who find it hard to deal with her daughter’s work, and in the end feels guilty for turning her away when her daughter confesses her husband beats her, “What did you do to make him beat you? There must have been a reason.” Hard to believe a mother would say this to her child, and the scene where dad, played by the always amazing Robert Patrick, talks to his daughter, confessing he has seen her movie and had to walk out, “Is it something we did?…I had to walk out, that wasn’t my little girl up there. I didn’t recognise her” he weeps down the phone.

This is not a film to watch when feeling fragile and we had a male writer even refuse to watch it (he thought the topless pictures of Amanda Seyfried that were released were inappropriate). In the end I do think this is a good film that tells the story well, it just should have been less exploitative. Some of it made for uncomfortable viewing. But it does at least show how destructive porn is. A few people seemed annoyed that the film is from Lovelace’s point-of-view but to me that seems obvious: this is her story, but less of Amanda Seyfried naked next time would make their story stronger, and do more justice to Linda Lovelace.

Lovelace is available on Blu-ray, DVD and download to own and rent from December 23

LOVELACE DISC INFORMATION:
Released:            23rd December 2013
RRP:                     £17.99 (DVD), £21.99 (BD)
Certificate:          18 (UK)
Running Time:    89 minutes
Extras:                 Behind Lovelace

The Unpaid Acting Work Dilemma by Professionally Resting.

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Casting call: ““Unfortunately we’re not able to offer a fee on this occasion.”

Sadly this type of casting call is one that I’m all too used to seeing. At least 75% of castings will
contain the above sentence or a wonderfully inventive version of it (such as the incredible ‘This is
a no-pay experience!’) It’s unfortunately become a fact of acting life and I’ve become as skilled as
sifting through castings as I have at rifling through sandwiches for rogue tomatoes. Directors will try
and soften the blow by telling you that you’ll get a credit to put on your CV (gee, thanks) and that
they’ll be providing you with food on set. On-set catering can be a thing of beauty (pizza) but it can
also be an utter horror made of stale sandwiches. Apparently actors can live on credits and bread
alone. If only landlords, phone companies and councils could be fobbed off in the same way.

Unpaid work has become a rather aggressive disease in the acting world. What was once the domain
of film students and wannabe filmmakers; it has now entered the world of television. And this is
a worrying development. I understand that however much they’d like to, students and smaller
production companies can’t always afford to pay people. The ethics bother me because I believe
that if you can’t afford to pay everyone then you probably shouldn’t be making the piece in the first
place but that’s an argument for another day. Unpaid work happens and sadly, just like the damp in
our flat, I have to deal with it for now and watch it ever so slowly ruin me. I should also admit that
I’ve taken on my fair share of unpaid work in the past. Unfortunately there are times when you have
very little choice and so you can either do nothing or take on some unpaid work in the hope that
it might just get you spotted. It won’t, but you never know when that top agent is going to turn up
at a secondary school in Northampton to watch you prance about telling kids about the dangers of
heroin. But now the bigger companies have jumped on the bandwagon and suddenly everything is
starting to topple over.

There have been a string of very high-profile companies that have recently started advertising
unpaid or expenses only work. And when I say ‘high-profile’ I mean the type of companies
that produce widely watched primetime programmes that air on terrestrial channels. These
are companies that clearly have plenty of money, or at least enough cash to make sure that all
performers are fairly paid. When they start offering unpaid work, what kind of message does that
send out to all the other companies? Apparently it’s now perfectly acceptable for these businesses
(one of whom made a profit of £471m last year) to get performers to work for free. But these
companies forget that actors often have a lot of time on their hands so it doesn’t take too long
before they’re ousted via the beauties of social networking. But what happens when they get found
with their devious trousers around their tight-fisted ankles? Well, what has happened recently
is that they make like George Osborne and u-turn. However, they don’t then promise to do the
honourable thing and actually pay actors. Oh no. Their reaction is to say that they will instead be
casting friends, family or employees. That’s what this profession has been downgraded to. Actors
are now regarded so poorly that we can be instantly replaced with the make-up artist’s cousin and
the focus puller’s university mates the second we start to complain. We find ourselves so low on the
career ladder that we’ve now been downgraded to the lackey that just holds the ladder and watches
everyone else climb up it.

So what this means is that actors will yet again be forced into unpaid work as they desperately try
to keep hold of a career that’s more slippery than a greased-up seal. We continually find ourselves
being held to ransom where we can either ‘shut up and put up’ or keep fighting and risk the chance
of never working again. Just like the next actor, I’d love the exposure that a primetime programme
would offer but never at my own expense and certainly not just so an exec can save a few precious
pennies and ensure that their bonus is intact for another year. Why should they get to go on exotic
holidays when I’m left wondering how to survive for the next week on a tin of chopped tomatoes
and a rapidly ageing nectarine? It’s at its lowest, meanest level and until all actors make a stand against these companies, all we’re doing is encouraging them to turn our already fragile
industry into a laughing stock.