The Thinning Class

You can’t miss it these days. Whether it be on a random runway or on the red carpet of the Oscars, women are getting thinner. I mean, REALLY thinner. Jawbones, hollow cheeks, clavicles… it is like watching a revival of that 1929 Walt Disney cartoon, ‘The Skeleton Dance.’

There has been a flood of cultural commentary on the subject, but few of them touch on the underlying machinery that manufactures these trends. It isn’t merely coincidental that this one coincides with food insecurity, an exponential rise in food prices, and a general feeling of unease due to the chaotic, aggressive and uncertain state of our contemporary lives.

The body has always served as the primary canvas of ruling class manipulation. Even more so than the mind. And this is because the body is seen. It is public. It is ubiquitous. And it is the best medium to project an ethos onto society. Whether it be from its adornment or modification, the body is a walking billboard for normative values. And it is the most important tool in distinguishing between the classes.

Women’s bodies in patriarchal societies have always been the delineator of status and the dominant values of the ruling class. In this way, whiteness has been presented for centuries as being the ideal. And white women have been propped up as the standard bearer of beauty, femininity and virtue. Who gets accepted into the whiteness club is dependent on certain physical indicators. In this way, whiteness is understood not so much as race, but as a set of unspoken social rules, understandings and taboos which are then coded as to develop a hierarchy and an arrangement of exclusion.

The wealthy white women of 18th century Europe and North America meticulously curated themselves to distinguish their lives and status from the lower or labouring classes. Extreme pale skin, often achieved by the use of expensive, toxic, lead-based powders, was used to achieve a perfectly uniform white face, neck, and bosom. Ozempic is also very expensive and carries significant health risks.

But the women of the 18th century would not have recognized the ‘Ozempic Chic’ trend because plumpness of body was the desired aesthetic, showing that they had enough money to eat high-calorie foods like meat and sugar. They were also encouraged to be shapely, with thin waists (with the assistance of a suffocating corset), rounded breasts and wide hips (again, with the assistance of panniers which also displayed expensive fabrics). The optics are different, but the point is the same. Altering the body through dangerous methods and chemicals to achieve a manufactured and dysmorphic image of beauty and wealth.

Indeed, every age in the West has similar stories. This is because under a capitalist hierarchy, which is always moored in patriarchal forms of social control, wealth must not only be accumulated, but be signaled through the body, the dress and the manners. Women, in this regard, are tasked with this role.

Which brings us to the ‘Ozempic Age’ where wealth is now projected via women’s bodies through thinness. Much like the 18th century example, this new phenomenon of rapid weight loss is concealed. When asked, most of these women deny using the drug and claim Pilates, yoga and good eating habits are the reasons for their rapid thinness. Obscuring their micro-dosing does the work of extolling their discipline and restraint. This reinforces the mythos that wealth is attained through virtue and hard work, and not access and privilege.

And it sends other messages as well. One, the idea is to shame the poor and working class for complaining about rising food costs. Having trouble paying that grocery bill? Well, if you had restraint as we do, you wouldn’t be struggling. You would just realize you don’t need food. And two, women are frail and defenseless creatures, destined to be cared for by the ‘alpha male.’

The Ozempic trend seen among celebrities and the wealthy is rooted in a longstanding tradition of controlling women’s bodies to control the message of capitalist virtue-signaling, white supremacy and patriarchal dominance. In many ways, it mirrors the so-called Maga-face that so many prominent Republican women appear to gravitate toward. While we might find it grotesque or frightening, they do not.

And this underscores the fact that they aren’t changing their faces or bodies for us. They are changing them to signal they are above us. That they are ridiculed for it is of little consequence to most of them. In fact, it is yet another signal that they have achieved something most of us cannot because we are of a lower caste.

The darkest part of this trend is where it sits in our world today. I worked in hospice care for over 20 years. I saw bodies waste away from cancer, AIDS and other diseases. The patients I dealt with were beautiful souls within bodies that were betraying them. And one of the main ways we could see this was through a rapid and steady loss of weight. That young women would want to do this voluntarily to their bodies is beyond tragic. To me, it shows how deeply disturbed and pathological our society’s values really are.

And there’s more. When we see wealth and beauty equated with a thinness that displays protruding bones and gaunt faces, we are subtly conditioned to normalize scarcity and starvation. The children in Gaza who are fading away thanks to a deliberate and orchestrated famine may shock us a little less when we see a runway or red carpet full of walking coatracks in couture. This is not to say this an organized campaign or conspiracy. But it has the effect of desensitizing us to the world the ruling class is more than happy to live with.

As with all trends of the wealthy, ruling classes, this one will eventually be jettisoned. What is unfortunate is that the damage done to real human bodies may be permanent and irreversible. But the damage to society as a whole is even greater. If we can be conditioned to accept starvation as virtuous, a necessity or a sign of status, we can ultimately accept our own annihilation.

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