Derek Zooland: Well I guess it all started the first time I went through the second grade. I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking “wow, you’re ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.”
Matilda: Do what for a career?
Derek Zoolander: Be professionally good looking.
This really deep and thought provoking account about how fictional model, Derek Zoolander, discovered his path in life, encapsulates the movie Zoolander. Released in 2001, it is a comedy about the fashion industry and modeling, a satire of the times. It is a movie about an extremely stupid male model trying to find his place in the world. When hearing this quote, one may laugh.
But, if you really think about it, it’s kind of absurd: Making a career out of being good-looking? Kind of odd, no? There is no real talent involved. You do not need to be smart or skillful. Yet, in 2001 and still today, our society is so enamored by modeling and models. To the point where a society’s body image as a whole, can be deeply affected by it. Girls look through magazines and wish they were as skinny and as beautiful and privileged as these girls. The movie really captures our societies obsession with celebrity and fashion and how sometimes this obsession can become ridiculous.
Even though we are not that far removed from 2001, a lot can happen in 9 years. When living in time it is hard to see outside of it. That is why movies can be an interesting freeze frame of time to look at and examine. Now our culture’s obsession has shifted from the industry depicted in the movie to celebrities as almost an enterprise. In 2001, the fixation with fame and celebrity was much different than it is today. In Zoolander, the world of the models has this aura and mystique around it. As though the general public, just knows them through an awards show or an add campaign. But today the relationship to fame and famous people has slightly shifted. Now, we know everything about everyone who is famous, thanks to dangerously stalker-ish paparazzi.
I will admit, I have fallen victim to this world of glitz and glamour, of fame and celebrity. I love it. I know all there is to know about famous actors singers, models, fashion you name it. Yet I am not completely ashamed of my knowledge. There is a fine line, for me at least, between complete stupidity and the beauty of different cultural forms. I think the idea of celebrity has been blown into this completely ridiculous world. But I do believe that a “Passion for Fashion” and knowledge of pop culture is admirable. As long as you appreciate the art form instead of just liking a singer or fashion designer because you saw her in a magazine and she is famous but you have no idea what she even does.
In the film, there is a presumption and a commentary about American culture and consumerism and how thoughtless and robotic it can be. In the movie the male model Hansel blabs, “I wasn’t like every other kid, you know, who dreams about being an astronaut, I was always more interested in what bark was made out of on a tree. Richard Gere’s a real hero of mine. Sting. Sting would be another person who’s a hero. The music he’s created over the years, I don’t really listen to it, but the fact that he’s making it, I respect that. I care desperately about what I do. Do I know what product I’m selling? No. Do I know what I’m doing today? No. But I’m here, and I’m gonna give it my best shot.”
There is this notion that that we kind of just do things and believe things because that is what the media tells us to do. The models are just pawns, eye candy to get us to be intrigued by something that may or may not be useful to us.
This movie is really a time capsule for the time it was created. Right now, it may not seem so far off from the world we live in, but years hence, when our world has shifted even further away from where we are, Zoolander will be an artifact. A funny movie that people will watch and be able to make fun of the 2000s.
