Bust A Career Move

Seeing as how this is a fashion blog, I think I ought to 'fess up to something. I say 'fess up, because I know I'm going to lose all the hip, indie fashion-blogging cred that I worked SO HARD to build up. Well, not really. But here goes. Y'see, after I graduated college, I might've auditioned for fashion modeling in my hometown of Houston, Texas.

Really? True story. And if you're skeptical, pragmatic, and wearing a moustache as you look down upon me for this, you're not the only one! When I told my parents I was going to spend a Saturday afternoon at some modeling agency, my dad sort of went, "Modeling? Modeling is what people do on the fringes of society," as if I had suggested I was going to run drugs across the US-Mexico border or stump tickets at an adult movie theater or something. My mom said that was fine, she just didn't want me to model underwear. Well, they were both way jumping the gun with that advice!

Omg, modeling! (I seriously had time after I graduated to hang out and take dorky self-portraits of myself. Most of these are not worth sharing, but still. Well-cultivated boredom, my friends!)

See, I thought this: What else does a decently attractive, sufficiently bored, unemployed, and over-educated girl with student loans to pay off do with her time? Other than become a model? Right on! If I was lucky, I might even have a cool story for later. Like, Hey guys, remember that time I paid off all my student loans and got married to a fashion photographer's second assistant because I was modeling modest athletic attire for women? Okay, so maybe not as cool as that. (But I made my modeling product unsexy, and my future husband just the second assistant, so my story would be cool but still believable.)

Anyway, so this is how it happened: Partly as a joke, I submitted an online form on a modeling agency's website, and to my amusement and surprise they phoned me about an open call during the weekend. I rolled up at the agency that Saturday and discovered, once everyone for the open call was herded into a small windowless room, that I was the oldest person there. Well, I was the oldest person who was not somebody's parent, or the auditioners.

The auditioners, our judges in a totally arbitrary trial, were a lady who resembled Tyra Banks in attitude and appearance, and whose tiny frame was encased in a pair of neon leggings, and a sullen and bored-looking girl (probably, like, five years my senior) with hair like Cat Power's.

And let me tell you this: it sucked. I was in a room full of ambitious, pushy parents and hesitant, awkward kids whose very personalities were on trial. There was so much desperation and tension in that room, it could've powered, like, Steamship Pre-Teen Angst. And I was the only one there who didn't care about the outcome of this audition. Well, me and Cat Power Hair Lady.

There were two modeling divisions: Runway and Commercial. Runway was for girls who were at least 5'9" and had hips under 35 inches, Commercial was for everybody else. Tyra Banks' Dopp spent the first twenty minutes of the audition delivering a sassy lecture about how it doesn't matter how pretty, funny, or cute anyone is - if you don't meet the qualifications for modeling, or fit the image that an advertising client wants, you won't cut it.

You also won't cut it if you expect to be an instant Angelina Jolie. Apparently, Angelina Jolie struggled to make it in modeling and acting because she didn't have the all-American look, but she got famous because she pushed herself. This was also the life story of Alexis Bledel, and countless other inspiring actors who had been represented by the agency and whose photos decorated the walls like trophies. Everyone looked terrified as Tyra Banks II delivered her sassy lecture. I was smirking. I'm pretty sure Cat Power Hair Lady was too.

Hello, 1-800-Dial-A-Model, am I a model yet or did I get Tyra Bank'd? Also, does this lipstick shade make me look like a confident woman with a waist to hip ratio of 0.7, or not so much?

After the lecture was over, nobody left. This might seem a bit surprising, but I'm sure the affect of that speech was that everyone was frozen in terror. Next up was the audition. We all had to go up one by one, introduce ourselves, and read a ten-second ad about a pretend product. The kids all did the reading the way kids present book reports in front of their class - lots of nervous shuffling, monotone reading from the page, and anxious giggling.

At the end of each read, Tyra Banks' Dopp asked us how the kid's performance had been. Good? Bad? Awful? Boring? It was sad because the parents weren't supportive, just deadly honest. "She was too nervous. She could've done better," one mom said, as if trying to disassociate from her awkward, nervous preteen daughter. I thought, "Mom up! Tell Tyra Banks to shove it where the sun don't shine, grab your daughter and get the heck out of here! Defending your kid from meanies is your parental duty!" But no one did this. In fact, I was one of the only ones who would offer constructive comments, instead of sitting in scared silence or coughing up a, "No good."

Then it was my turn. I stood in front of that crowd and delivered that ad like an elementary school teacher reading to a group of hard-of-hearing preschoolers. And surprise of surprises, Tyra Banks II dug it. It was not a good read. It was not very good acting. But I was twenty-two years old, and I didn't give (much of) a damn about these proceedings, and that came off as confidence. Tyra the Tyrant even said to me, "I like you. You have confidence." Well, gee thanks, T.B. II.

So ... posing or falling? Who cares, I've definitely got natural talent here!

And so, what was the upshot? I accidentally took my application with all my information home with me, and so I never got called back. But you know what? I really think that was for the best. And I hope most of those kids got back to reading comic books and drawing and playing outside, and whatever else cool, funny, creative kids do for a living, instead of going into advertising.

Now, I'm sure modeling is fun and creative and pays well, or at least that's what I was hoping when I tried out. And, I'll admit, for a deluded moment I thought it might be kind of bad-ass to nonchalantly have a modeling career on the side, like Audrey Tatou's character in that movie Dieu Et Grand, Je Suis Toute Petite or like Sylvia Plath (did I make that one up?)

But if you think about it, child modeling is really weird. It's like telling your kid that even though you live in a first world country and you're safely ensconced in the middle class economic bracket, he or she is probably better off with a job. You're eight years old and you haven't worked a lick in your life, kid? Stop being a lazy ass, put those Barbies and Tonka trucks (I'm assuming kids today still play with these kinds of toys) away, and get yourself hired as a child model, for crying out loud! Are all the cool kids supposed to have jobs and mortgages by the age of, like, twelve? What a bummer. I hope not.