Source: Remy de la Mauviniere/Associated PressThe French work in mysterious ways. With the public-school ban on head scarves firmly in place (read about the notorious phenomenon of “windsurfing Islamic head scarves” on this translated Wikipedia page, heh, heh), French legislators have now turned their disgust with personal freedom on another aspect of women’s appearances.
The lower house of Parliament has proposed to make “incitement to anorexia” illegal, punishable by big fines and even jail time.
Anorexia is terrible, but “incitement to anorexia” is, in America so far, considered free speech. But what do the French intend to stop with this possible law? Surely not cruel comments about love handles and saddlebags?
Eventually, who knows? But for now the most overt kind of anorexia incitement — and the kind the French government seems to have in its sights — are the lurid pro-anorexia, or pro-ana, Web sites. These sites provide so-called “tips and tricks” on losing weight the lethal way. But they also produce, or link to, a YouTube and Flickr microgenre that goes by the name of Thinspiration, or Thinspo. The Internet is jammed with it.
I don’t know if this stuff is safe for work; it’s definitely sad. Thinspo — mostly videos and photomontages — makes walking emaciation look possible and desirable. Sometimes Thinspo is styled as a P.S.A. against eating disorders, though; it’s not always easy to tell which side a Thinspo video maker is on.
Still, the Thinspo form (including subforms like Real Girl Thinspo, Celebrity Thinspo, Anti-Thinspo, Pro-Ana Thinspo and Bones Thinspo) is a distinct, disturbing, disgusting and provocative microgenre on YouTube and other videos sites, and it’s worth trying to figure out how the tragedy of anorexia got woven into the glamour of it. Some of the videos, while designed to “inspire,” warn viewers that they might “trigger.” What’s the difference, I wonder?
Pro-anorexia clips use funereal songs about beauty, or explicit anorexia anthems like “Courage,” by Superchick. (“I don’t know the first time I felt unbeautiful/The day I chose not to eat”). Note that the popular uploaders have YouTube names like cutthisskin shecriesinside15, twigs27 and iheartwater.
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