Katie Knowles Disabled Plus Size Model

Katie Knowles has become the first plus-size disabled model in the United Kingdom. The implication being there exists another plus-size disabled model elsewhere. Or that this isn’t weird. Wrong on both accounts.

The precise point of a model is to represent an unattainable ideal. The perfect score on the SATs. The all-birdie round at Augusta. The Puerto Rican girl not holding a child at her high school graduation. You’re supposed to look at a model and think, “Fuck, that person looks so much better than me. Maybe if I buy lots of shit I’ll look like her.” When you don’t get the desired results you console yourself with the fact that you can still go large at Denny’s and you never had to endure a fifty-year-old Frenchman fingering your butt-hole at thirteen.

If you look at a model and think, wow, we look so similar, she’s failed. You’ll be wearing those sweatpants to the grocery store forever. If you want to look at fat people, step outside your door. If you wanna look at fat disabled people, go to the DMV. Perching less superficially desirable people on pedestals is a reflection of our everyone-gets-a-trophy society. To Knowles credit, she’s barely ambulatory and she’s still thinner than Ashley Graham. Are you sure all the worthwhile jobs were already taken?

Photo credit: Katie Knowles / Instagram