The Fictional Woman by Tara Moss

Author:Tara Moss [Moss, Tara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-05-05T14:00:00+00:00

11

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.

John Berger, Ways of Seeing1

In early 2013, I spoke at an author lunch for my eighth novel, Assassin, the final volume in the crime series that launched my writing career. Afterwards, during the signing, a woman approached me with a story to share. As I sat behind the signing table, pen poised over her copy of my book, she explained that in 2000 she and her partner saw me walk through Sydney airport and she said, ‘Oh, she must be a model.’ According to the recollection she felt compelled to share with me, I then proceeded to sit down nearby and read a book as I waited for my plane, while they joked that I was ‘probably reading the book upside down . . . because I mean, obviously, right? You’re too beautiful.’ The woman went on to say: ‘When I heard you talk today about what you went through when you were first published . . . I just needed to let you know that I was one of those people.’ She smiled cheerfully, her confession made.

This story is by no means unique. A review of one of my other novels, published recently, summed it up well: ‘My expectations were low for this one,’ the reviewer wrote. ‘I am ashamed to say, I think I was a little biased towards the author, but Tara Moss dispels the myth that models are air-headed clothes horses.’ This was a professionally penned review of my work, coming after thirteen years of being a novelist. In other words, had I not gradually over the period of more than a decade built up the possibility of this reviewer reading my work, she would have almost certainly continued to believe that I was an ‘air head’, end of story.

I have heard variations on this theme nearly every week of my writing career, from men and women of all ages. It’s not exactly a terrible burden to bear, ranked against other obstacles or even other damaging stereotypes, but it does trouble me for a few reasons. Naturally, there is the fact that I’ve only heard all this over the years because I am a published author; it is safe to say that if my only public career had been that of fashion model, I would not have heard these stories – certainly not as ‘confessions’. As I grow older this reaction is no longer the problem it once was, but what troubles me is the certain knowledge that mine is not an isolated experience.

There are a lot of people who walk through life being pointed at, and sniggered at, and underestimated for no logical or meaningful reason whatsoever, thanks to a variety of unpleasant stereotypes to do with physical appearance, size, disability, race, the status implied by their clothes, and so on.

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