So, okay, am I missing something with this whole Kate Moss/cocaine thing? In case you haven’t heard, I believe the deal is that someone got a picture of her sniffing coke. Now H&M and a few other companies who were using Moss have dropped her, and apparently it might be hard for her to get future work.

Huh? Now don’t get me wrong. I can’t stand coke. I’ve never done it myself, but I hate what it does to people, making them mean and shady and moody. I’m not advocating cocaine use. But – huh?? What is the big deal here, exactly? Because on the news last night, there was this definite tone of shock and judgment towards this *terribly damaging* photographic evidence. And I don’t get it. Why is anyone so surprised that someone famous – particularly a model – did/does cocaine? Doesn’t that like, come with the territory? Or am I basing too much of my model world knowledge on the movie “Gia?”

And even if it doesn’t come with the territory, why is it that Robert Downey Jr. can be constantly cracked out of his mind, but the second he’s sober for five minutes, studios are banging down his door to work with him? Colin Farrell, at least before his child, can be on a perpetual bender, but ha ha, what a funny Irishman, he so crazy! Let’s cast him! Matthew McConaughey gets arrested playing bongos naked while high as a kite, and makes no apologies, and he still gets work.

Well, okay, the pot-induced musical nudity is definitely kind of awesome. But my point is, why is Kate Moss in such big trouble? It seems completely hypocritical and sort of ironic in a meta kind of way. It used to be, back in the late ‘80s into the early ‘90s, that there were your regular people, then the thin supermodels – Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, et al. Cindy Crawford was wearing a size 6 in ‘92 when her first workout video came out.

Then came Calvin Klein with his “Boobs? What’re those?” starving-children-aren’t-they-sexy campaign, and that became model skinny, while people like Cindy Crawford became “healthy sized models.” And the poster child for that grungy, bony “new” look was…Kate Moss! Since then, skeletal became the new thin; thin with a curve here or there became “refreshing,” and regular bodies became even more undesirable than before. And the NAME of this modeling revolution? Heroin chic. Heroin chic. Heroin = chic! Heroin = drugs = chic = tons and tons of money for Calvin Klein, for everyone who cashed in on this new look, company after company who hopped on this sketchy and controversial bandwagon in order to cash in on the profits derived from setting an even more unattainable standard of “beauty.”

But now, the same media are horrified and appalled that Kate Moss did a line of coke? Give me a freaking break. It’s a bit hysterical at best, and completely disingenuous at worst, for companies to be shocked that a model who, considered way past her prime at the ripe old age of 31, is doing a drug that enables her keep up in a world that they used her to help create. Cocaine helps people get and stay ridiculously skinny. It helps people work insane hours. It helps people not to wither in the spotlight while upholding a fun, party image that companies are willing to profit from, but not take any responsibility for.

So shut up, H&M. Shut up, WB11 News At Ten. Shut up, everyone who has a clear picture in his or her mind of what a woman should look like, but doesn’t want to see how how the filet mignon gets from the cow to the plate, if you know what I mean. I don’t think that Kate Moss is a victim here, but I think that maybe people should be worrying a little bit less about whether celebrities they’ll never meet are doing drugs, and a little more about why exactly it enrages them so.

© December 24, 2005