Fashion overexposed

In response to the cover story on the sick world of modelling ["Fashion exposed," Sept. 23]: about the only good I hope will come of it is to give teenage girls a good metaphorical slap for dreaming about becoming a model.

Words that ran through my head while I read the article/book excerpt: trashy, exploitation, misogyny, abuse, superficiality, immorality, avarice, sick, lowest-common-denominator, irreverent and reverent (as in wannabe).

This is the kind of article that readers of FHM, Maxim, Details and other "men's" magazines lap up and dish out. I don't know why. Do men really, I mean really, enjoy reading about sex and pain? Or only when it seems to be inflicted by men, for men (inasmuch as it's part of producing eye-candy), on women or men who aren't intelligent or moral or sane enough to refuse that kind of treatment? And is saying, "Well, that's the way it is" good enough to excuse it, that people should either like it or lump it?

You know, people should be able to work without feeling like they have to give sexual favours in order to continue. There are laws against it. This is something that I expect the vice squads to be cracking down upon. It's a shame that it occurs anywhere in the world.

I would be careful about reporting sleaze--and even of offhandedly using innuendo as headlines, it's cheap and dull. If people think it's common, they'll tend to think it's alright.

Maybe you should publish some feminism to counteract the exploitation that the media is seeming to celebrate in recent times.

--Jane Sorensen

Voyage to the kitty pound

The lost-animal situation in Montreal is shocking. A friend of mine lost her cat recently. Simple, right? Yeah, right. You must check out the SPCA (this we expected) and the Berger Blanc.

Where is the latter, the cat pound for the city of Montreal? Two blocks east of the oil refineries. There is no metro nor bus anywhere nearby. It is on a desolate piece of road in an industrial park. They are closed by 8 p.m. on weekdays.

Anyone without a car simply cannot go up to see if their animal has been found--trying to get there on a weekday by public transportation would make the Odyssey look like a walk in the park.

Apparently, Berger Blanc "disposes" of animals after three days, so this epic voyage has to be repeated often. A voyage to their nondescript building which could be located anywhere, but is "conveniently" located where they likely pay the lowest rent.

Of course, the Berger Blanc was the lowest bidder to the City of Montreal to deal with strays and, in Pierre Bourque's Montreal, plants take a higher priority than people or animals. I'm sure every Access Montreal office could help me if my bonsai ever goes missing.

--Neil Schwartzman

Trembles knows his porn

Bravo Rick Trembles! Your "Porn Jekyll and Hyde's penitence paraded for your persual" is brilliant [Motion Picture Purgatory, Sept. 23]. I nixed any thoughts of attending Sex: The Annabel Chong Story when I saw the promo poster plastered all over the city. A headless torso is not an invitation to sincere debate.

Thanks, Rick. You keep us awake.

--Jean Elliott Manning

Lists are not hot

I can't believe you would stoop so low as to publish one of those inane "What's hot/what's not" lists ["Things we hate, things we love," Sept. 23]. Are you on some demented quest to be more like People magazine?

Here's what I hope will be "hot" for the millennium: everybody doing their own shit without caring if assholes at the Mirror think they're cool or not.

--Paul Mullie

Correction

The photo of Play (With Me) by the McGill Players Theatre ["Games without frontiers," Sept. 23] should have been attributed to Rushan Galagoda.