The Cruel Paradox of Linda Evangelista’s Fate
The New York Times
A world obsessed with women’s hyper-visibility can dispatch them so swiftly to invisibility.
Earlier this month, the former supermodel Linda Evangelista took to Instagram to announce that she was suing the company behind the cosmetic procedure known as CoolSculpting for tens of millions of dollars because, she said, she had been “brutally disfigured.”
Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit against Zeltiq Aesthetics, it’s hard not to feel sympathy for Ms. Evangelista in the midst of her saga. While there are known risks associated with all cosmetic procedures, and Ms. Evangelista must still prove her case, no one deserves to enter a doctor’s office seeking treatment, only to emerge disfigured.
There is a mythic component to the sobering and revealing mirror her circumstances now hold up to our culture. Ms. Evangelista’s story invites us to consider it in a broader context.
