Sara Cornell
My morning ritual consists of hitting the snooze button at least 3 times, before rolling over to check my emails and news feed from the comfort and warmth of the bed. This morning my iPhone informed me that I had several notifications on Facebook – sadly the news source for far too many – and upon entering Mr. Zuckerberg’s realm, I was immediately assaulted with yet another Kardashian affront. And quite literally, this time, it was the front.
Unless you have been living in a cave this week (or you forgot to pay the cable bill and didn’t have access to WiFi) you are probably aware that Mrs. Kanye West posed for a very provocative photo shoot hyping what she considers her main asset. And as suspected, the internet went crazy. I read many (way too many…) articles and commentaries on said photo and photo shoot. The internet trolls were out in full force, and there was little, if any, positive editorial response to yet another view of her body.
This morning phase two of the photo shoot went viral, and revealed to the world Kim’s full frontal (and I’m sure highly photoshopped) nudity.
At this point I reached for my reading glasses, thinking that I was still in a snooze induced nightmare. Nope. Fully awake. My first thought – even before coffee – was “I wonder if she is going to regret this when she’s 50.”
When I was in college I made extra money as a model. I did fashion shows, and TV commercials, and a good amount of print work. My look was clearly slanted to the wholesome prepster, and I was a regular in the Johnny Appleseed catalogue (remember that one…!) One day I was offered a job for Pneumatic Scale. They were re-shooting the packaging on a home scale and needed a model. I was to be paid three times my regular rate for 10 to 12 hours of work. The thing was, they wanted to shoot in the nude. The final image was intended to be shadowed or silhouette, obscuring all identifying face shots, but nonetheless I would be au natural in front of the camera the entire day…and then for all eternity on the packaging.
In what I can only imagine was a moment of clarity and good judgment in my yet to be fully formed 20-year-old brain, I turned down the job. Something inside told me that by signing my model release I was relinquishing control of the images, even if the payday was going to be substantial.
I sometimes think about that shoot that I never did. In all probability nothing dramatic or traumatic would have happened. But it would lurk in my mind if I had done it, that there was a roll of nude photographs out there somewhere that could turn up and cause a ruckus or other disturbance to my choices and opportunities or those of my children.
I highly doubt that Kim worries about what her children may think of her someday. I suspect that she loses little sleep over missed opportunities that may present themselves because she has chosen to let the world peruse that which most people save for their intimate relationships. Which I guess begs the question does she place any value on intimacy?
I am not going to take umbrage with her personal choices – they are her choices and she is the one who has to live with them…despite the fact that the rest of the population is being force fed a diet of tasteless and trashy images. But I will say that I feel sorry for her, because one day she may want to do something or be someone or go somewhere and the opportunity may be off limits because of what she chooses to do now.
If she were my daughter I would be ashamed of her. If she were my mother I would be embarrassed to tears. As a complete stranger to her, I am suffering from secondhand embarrassment, knowing that almost everyone is laughing at her especially bad judgment…not to mention her flagrant narcissism.