Why are minors stripping in front of the camera anyway. What kind of parent would allow their 14 year old daughter to go on her own to sell her body. Thank God this doesn't exist in our society where women are not portrayed as sex objects.
The Naked Truth About Modeling
Being under the spotlight isn't all glamour. As Sara Ziff discovered, top models also fall prey to sexual predators.
Jun 24, 2009
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A 16-year-old girl is on her first modeling shoot in Paris. She is unchaperoned and inexperienced. She takes a break for a cup of coffee, and a photographer follows her down the hall. She stops, and he fiddles with her clothes. Then he reaches in between her legs and gropes her. Stunned, the model says nothing. He says nothing. They walk back into the room and finish the shoot.
It's stories like these that stood out as Sara Ziff, a successful runway model, and her boyfriend, filmmaker Ole Schell, began shooting behind the scenes at Ziff's shows. For five years, they recorded parties, castings, inside hotel rooms, and backstage behind the runway as Ziff became the face of campaigns from Calvin Klein to Dolce & Gabbana. What emerged was a portrait of the dark side of the modeling world, one that most people never see: young girls, often half a world away from home, unprepared to handle the sexual objectification and frequent harassment that Ziff says is an all-too-common part of their jobs. Ziff and Schell turned their footage into a documentary, Picture Me, which won the audience award for best picture at the Milan Film Festival last month. Ziff spoke with NEWSWEEK's Jessica Bennett. Excerpts:
Bennett: Were you worried how the industry would react to your film?
Ziff: After the premiere, I figured I might never work again. But if anything, I think [the film] has actually helped my career. A week after the premiere, a casting director who was there booked me for a Gap ad. I've gotten e-mails from well-known designers and casting directors and tons of other models, saying, "I'm so glad this is finally coming out, because so many people have these stories." And it's really not that secret. People know these things happen, but they tend to turn a blind eye. And if you don't talk about it, you think you're the only one.
Were you ever put in that kind of position?
I started modeling at 14, after being scouted on the street walking home from school. One of my first castings was in a photographer's apartment downtown. I got there, and there was a line of models waiting at the door. I went in and he asked me to show him my book. I did, and then he said, "Well, this is a bathing-suit story, and it's a little hard for me to picture you in a bathing suit. Could you take your shirt off?" And I thought, "Well, that makes sense," so I did. And then he said, "Can you take your pants off?" And this continued to the point where I'm standing there [topless,] basically totally naked. I was 14. And in hindsight, it's crazy that I was put in that position, but I just didn't know any better.
Did you tell your parents?
No, absolutely not. It was something I had never talked about until recently, even with the people closest to me. For the most part, people on these shoots are completely professional, so no girl who has one or two bad experiences—which she's bound to have—is going to call home and say, "Mom, Dad, I just got molested." Because she knows she's going to be on the next bus back to Kansas.
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