There is a TV show that epitomizes much of what's wrong with this oh so fucked up culture. It is so so wrong in so many ways. It is called Project Runway and one of my dirty little secrets is that I watch it. Even though I keep telling myself never again, I keep coming back, cringing, cursing, averting my eyes, yet as ineluctably drawn to it as is Michael Kors to his tanning bed. And so yes, last night I watched the finale. And what I want to ask is this.
How can it be that one of the three finalists said his collection was inspired by "German and Russian military uniforms from the 1940s"? And that no one batted an eye at the fact that, to take him at his word, at least half of his inspiration came from the fucking Nazis?!? He's all like, "Well yeah they were fascists and carried out a genocide that killed like a gazillion people and I guess they were kind of really mean, but wow did they ever dress cool! Like check out their amazing sense of style! And that's all that really matters, isn't it?"
He seemed equally clueless about the bizarre contradiction that by claiming he was also and somehow at the same time inspired by the opposite -- the uniforms of the heroes of World War II, the soldiers who defeated the Nazis, those of the Soviet Union -- he trivialized the immense sacrifice of the USSR and the over 20 million of its people who died in that cause.
Well who cares anyhow. All that matters is fashion, right?
So there it was. A Nazi-inspired designer strutting his Nazi-inspired designs down the fabulous runway at the fabulous Mercedes Benz (yeah, I know, you gotta love the irony) Fashion Week in fabulous Bryant Park. And there they were, apparently undisturbed. You've got your Teutonic ice queen "supermodel," whatever that means, Heidi Klum, hosting the show, she whose granddads perhaps wore some of those cool cool Nazi uniforms. You've got your judge, fashion designer Michael Kors, some of whose relatives some of Heidi's likely helped wipe out. You've got your Tim Gunn, who wouldn't have lasted a hot minute at the hands of those well-dressed SSers. And none of them seems to have been troubled in the least.
In fact, they picked this guy as the winner. So there you have it. Project Runway hearts Nazis.
I know this entire posting contradicts what I wrote yesterday about plans to tighten up the direction of this blog, but sometimes a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.
