Maddison Gabriel - Mama's little girl

All hands in the air for Maddison Gabriel! The Australian model who is the new "face" of the Gold Coast Fashion Week. And who turned thirteen the 16th of last month.

Modeling, apparently, is all she’s wanted to do since she was six. And she managed to get her mother to agree! Now that’s heartening. Makes me wonder if my mum would’ve let me be an elephant trainer at the circus if I had persisted with the demand till I was the green old age of 12. Nanu could’ve been a monkey like she always wanted to. One must keep in mind though that strutting your stuff (?) on the runway must pay a lot more than what monkeys or elephant trainers or monkeys that train elephants earn (maybe not that last one. I bet they’d pay an elephant training monkey a lot more.. hmmm…).

“I believe that I can fit into women’s clothes. I can model women’s clothes, so I should be able to do it,” says Madison. Of course she can fit into women’s clothes; they’re all made so the only people who can wear them without being in grade III malnutrition are flat chested prepubescent 12 year olds with no butt.

Every little girl loves to parade around in new clothes and have people tell her how pretty she looks, so it shouldn’t come as a life altering surprise when one declares that she wants to be a model. But modeling isn’t about grace or poise (you are confusing it with ballet), it is about sexuality, plain and simple. There is nothing innocent or alright about putting a twelve year old in clothes meant for women and making her walk down a ramp looking nonchalant and flipping her hair ‘just so’. It is deeply disturbing that a mother would allow her child to be viewed as a sexual object instead of protecting her; and try to justify it too: “She says she wants to be a model”. Mummy dearest is just helping her daughter fulfill her dreams. And hopefully taking spelling lessons while she’s painting her daughter’s blindingly bright future for her (MaDDison? What was she thinking).

Little Maddison can legally do what her heart desires; unlike in the European Union where models under 16 have been banned from the runways, Australia has no laws preventing young teens from modeling and Maddison’s mother has demanded an apology from the Australian prime minister John Howard for having expressed his distaste about the matter. One wonders if this wouldn’t rightly come under the territory of child labour laws though.

Will it affect her overall growth as a person, assuming she can deal with the pressures of a real job and that she is blessed with enough brains to not lag behind at geography and PE? (Let’s not be so grandiose as to talk about math.) Brooke Shields survived, as did Kate Moss and as we all know they are both Very well adjusted adults, if you leave out the trips to the shrink, the clinical depression and the coke.

Will she be able to stand the pressures of the job? For starters she’ll surely have to resort to anorexia or at least to bulimia once puberty hits. And that nose! That had better be under the scalpel soon if she plans on getting any real work. Her chin looks something awful at the moment, but let’s give her the benefit of doubt, after all, can you really see her chin under all that puppy fat? One wonders what the judges at the Gold Coast fashion week were thinking. I’m going to go with ‘free publicity’, on a wild guess.

Oh, and, Love the hair!