A Model Career
WHAT DOES IT take to be a on model? More than high cheekbones and
the thinnest thighs in the neighborhood, says Rhoda Fisher, Ph.D., who
finds that we don't just fall into our jobs. We have personality traits
that draw us to certain occupations.
A Syracuse, New York, psychologist, Fisher is scrutinizing the
personality traits of people in various occupational groups. She's looked
at nurses, doctors, magicians, actors, comedians, and models. From themes
that crop up in interviews and patterns of response on projective tests,
she has developed objective criteria that clearly distinguish one set of
workers from another.
If a contest were to be held today for the top deniers, models
would win in a walk. On the runway of life, says Fisher, models
consistently refuse to see anything negative. Display the ambiguous blobs
that make up the Rorschach test and out come responses like, "There's
something there but I can't see it. It's so vague," or "There is a face
here but I can't see any of the details," or "Put behind glass. Something
is on it. It's not clear."
Give models a thematic apperception test, and the typical answer
is, "Here's a boy. Thinking about something. I can't tell what the
expression on his face means. The whole picture is too vague to make up a
story." Vagueness, says Fisher, is the model's life theme.
"Models don't want to see what is going on. They don't see
situations that are anxiety-provoking, demanding, or threatening. When
they look perfect, the are saying 'we live in a perfect world,
everything's under control, you don't have to worry.' That's the model's
message to humanity, but it is a form of denial," says Fisher, who
interviewed 27 fashion models in her upstate New York area. Afraid she
was not tapping the real thing, she took herself to the couture ateliers
of Paris, where she interviewed five "girls" at Yves St. Laurent and a
handful at other salons. "The data," she reports with relief, "look
exactly the same.
The denial extends even to
Photo: Models on the runway ((c) A. Agor/Gamma-Liaison)
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