"Germany's next top model" is back and with it the first excitement. Candidate Elsa only likes real fur. Wild foxes are so warming. In addition, the fur grows back, according to another candidate. Heidi Klum simply calls the total mental failures of her "girls": "opinion". Donnerlittchen, the stupidity of the week!
Once upon a time, my great-grandmother, in her lovable kindness, stood in front of the wardrobe, took out a fox fur collar and put it around my neck. She said you could put it over any coat you like, it would always keep you warm. At that time she was well over 80 years old and had probably thought about which grandchild she would inherit which of her belongings. There was a choice of an incomplete coffee set, collector's cups from Poland, a bit of cocolore and of course the valuable fox fur collar, at the end of which the little paws were still dangling.
Great-grandmother had probably received the collar herself from her mother or grandmother. Nobody knew that for sure. Anyway, I thanked him politely, because I didn't want to offend my great-grandmother, and immediately gave the collar to my mother, who tucked it away in some dresser, never to be seen again. That was in the 1980s.
Even now, in 2023, we're talking about fur - real ones, mind you. It is nothing new that there are flashbulbs all over the world whose ego far outweighs their own stupidity. But it becomes embarrassing when intellectual low-flyers are regularly offered a huge platform. This is what happened these days in connection with the new season of the ProSieben casting show "Germany's next top model" (GNTM). Or as a "suffering father", whose daughter is a big fan of the show, writes in an online comment: "The stupidest show in the German-speaking world. (...), which cannot be surpassed in terms of simplicity, insubstantiality and the lack of any values is."
Heidi Klum has been polarizing with her show for years. Criticism has been pouring in for about as long. With the result: It changes - nothing at all! Right at the beginning of the new season, an 18-year-old candidate is causing a stir on the internet. Her name: Elsa. In her seemingly boundless infantility, she bubbles into the camera, why she doesn't want to do without her $400 real fox fur jacket, which she presents to the other candidates with a smile: "I love real fur. I can't do without fur either. Of course it warms me up . I didn't kill it with my own hands, that's important to me."
Unfortunately, Elsa cannot wear fake fur because she doesn't like it. Of course you have to understand that! The other candidates, among them vegetarians and vegans, giggle in embarrassment, some try to sensitize the fur wearer and report on documentaries in which one learns about the torment of foxes, mink and other fur animals that are "skinned alive". When one of the other GNTM candidates finally joins the giggling group: "It's not a problem, the fur grows back anyway", you can only applaud people who are firmly convinced that humanity is becoming more and more stupid.
Yes, it hurts a little to encounter such stupidity. It doesn't change anything that the broadcaster cut out the scene. Because you can now of course see them on Heidi's Instagram account. They want to be diverse, cosmopolitan and modern. After all, you move with the times! But if that were the case, those responsible would have informed Fuchspelz-Elsa immediately that in 2023 there would no longer be any reason to wear real fur. And that the sweet foxes do not, as some of the candidates seem to assume, happily slink through the forest and shed their fur like deer their antlers, but starve on breeding farms in tiny cages. Because people like Elsa just don't like the faux fur on their skin.
And how does model mom Heidi Klum react to the real fur scandal? Freely based on Shakespeare, she asks theatrical questions: "Real fur or fake fur? Eat meat or live vegan? Many candidates, many opinions!"
Dear Heidi Klum, wanting to sell animal suffering and animal pain as an opinion is not only old fashioned and out of date, it is, measured by the revelations of animal protection organizations like PETA, deeply ignorant, not to say: rarely stupid. It's wonderful how people babble about "opinions" on your own social media channel, which you just have to endure, and at the same time your own comment function is switched off. Cruelty to animals is not an opinion!
Instead of using their own huge reach and educating and sensitizing young people about the disgusting fur industry, Elsa's ignorant Geseire is dismissed as an opinion. The wild fox is so nice and warm and Elsa just doesn't like the fake fur! You have to accept that.
As the "suffering father" mentioned above says, Heidi's show has an immense influence on teenagers and young adults. Instead of flooding the brains of the "girls" with superficial things and manipulating them in their self-image, Mama Heidi would do well to use their reach sensibly and to be a role model for the young women. Thats is quite easy. For example, she could start by not dismissing animal torture as a lapse. And tell Elsa about PETA, who have been fighting illegal fur farms and for more education for years. Instead, it says: Unfortunately, I'm not a role model for you again today. Until next week!
