Personality Traits

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In Defence of a Deprived Lot

Most of the ideas in this post appeared in my head, random but fully formed, while I was walking down Brigade Road with a friend one day. I have more to say on this topic, I'm afraid, but I reached the limits of my single session writing stamina with this; but I'll probably be adding to this in the near future.

It seems a little bit unfair to me, when I think of how an entire race of beings is being maltreated, that we still continue to discriminate on trivial things like the capacity to locomote. Isn’t it just another attribute like the (thankfully eradicated) discrimination based on skin colour? How does it matter if they can’t move? Would you make a lame man your slave simply because he cannot walk? And when I think of that absurd phenomenon called animal rights activism, my mind boggles at the contradictions. They are just bloody animals! Things which creep, crawl, smell, pee on your carpet, things which eat you and don’t apologize. These beings are much closer to us physically than a bunch of filthy animals that have only been created for us to conquer. If these beings are so unfairly treated, and if these beings are so much like us as you claim, why isn’t anyone else fighting for it, you the poor logician ask. 

I think about not dignifying that petty question with a response, but that may come across as a dodge, and so I am forced to talk about that noble thing called being the pioneer. If Newton had not fallen asleep under a tree, would the apple have fallen on him and passed on its knowledge of the workings of the Universe to him? What a preposterous thought! So, I refuse to be shamed into recanting my stand. I refuse to cow down in the face of adversity. I take pride in the fact that I’m the first person in history to be fighting for the rights of some of the most downtrodden beings on the planet. The mannequins.

A survey conducted amongst the adult white male population of Vanautu has shown that public support for animal rights is rising. An astounding 67% of the people surveyed admitted to having watched Tom and Jerry at some point in their lives. A scientist, not attached with the survey team, has hailed this study as one of earth shattering ethical significance.

I hope I have impressed upon you the gravity of the situation, and the extent to which we have veered off the path of righteousness. No, I do not intend to demean animal rights activists – tree hugging lot of crazy hippies they might be – but I simply wish to emphasize the urgency of the need to resolve this predicament (hamsters are now getting full time lawyers now, that's how nigh the end is). Have any of you bleeding hearts seen the deplorable conditions mannequins are forced to work in? How can you not see them wither away, standing faithfully in the scorching sun and the freezing night, not moving an inch for hours at a stretch, and not feel your heart burst with empathic agony?

I see. You’re not bleeding hearts, you claim. You’re rational, and intelligent. You’re scientifically trained, and you will not be God-talked into accepting random claims. Fair enough. Let me lay down my logical, rational, scientific arguments for reasonable people like you.

A study conducted by the Artificial Intelligence wing of the US Military attempted to diagnose why the first ever android citizen of the United States has not been able to establish sexual relations in over forty years of existence, and has drawn some novel conclusions in the process. Apparently, the android has displayed an off-putting tendency to laugh at any and all references to horoscopes, Farmville and Justin Bieber, severely affecting his chances of impressing potential mates. ‘We have to’ said Dr. Hal, the lead scientist for this project ‘take another look at the definition of things we hold reasonable.’

Mannequins have the right to not wear stupid blonde wigs all the time.

Instead of making a general catch-all statement that would perfectly capture the idea of this fundamental right, I have taken the opposite option of choosing the most shocking example. Blonde wigs looks retarded, and you know it, which is why your insistence on adorning mannequins with these golden monstrosities is tantamount to torture. Mannequins have the right to not be foisted the tastes of fashion-blind shopkeepers. 

Mannequins have the right to not all be of the same colour.

You think racism is dead? Take a look at these poor people. Why’re they always in the same shade of pasty yellowish-pinkish-white that would, had it been naturally bestowed upon one of us, either made that person’s career as a talkshow alien guest or made him disappear forever into some CIA dungeon along with the rest of the Roswell crew. It’s pathetic how we impose our silly notion of the perfect form upon these beings. Mannequins have the right to be short too! Mannequins have the right to carry a little flab in their skin! Being tall and handsome and fetching is boring when everyone else is tall and handsome and fetching. More than boring, it is tantamount to slavery.

How would you, fine guardians of human morality and sworn enemies of communist thought, feel if all your children looked the same and dressed the same, and all had some colour blind Russian’s idea of a perfect form? Wouldn’t you fight to the death – or your alien clone children’s deaths – for your right to difference? Just extend the analogy, only a little, just enough to give these folks a fighting chance, and you’ll have done your bit.

Mannequins have the right to not be Buddhist.

Perhaps you are so far along in your discriminatory behaviour that you are unaware that you’re choosing these beings’ religion for them. Perhaps, even if you realize that fact, you are so callous, so deliberately un-bleeding-heart that you don’t understand why it’s only Buddhism that you’re letting them have. Mannequins have no choice but to follow some stupid birth and rebirth cycle, just so that we lazy humans can follow ‘recycle plastic’ laws. Just like Buddhism. Fine, you don’t want to give mannequins (what you think are) extraneous powers like the right to look good on their own terms. But, religion! You cannot deny even a rat its religion, it’s the single most important facet of life and existence.

What religion would most mannequins choose though? I don’t pretend to answer for everyone, because that would be just as sinfully stereotypical as making all of them involuntary Buddhists, but it would most likely be Islam. Here is a religion that respects its mannequins’ need for privacy. I have seen that a handful of valiant social workers in Muslim countries have lobbied for, and successfully achieved, the right of mannequins to dress in darkness. I see I’m digressing a fair bit from my original bulletpoint, so I’ll break out another one.

Mannequins have the right to privacy.

I cringe every time I see a mannequin clad only in his or her underwear put out in the open for closet voyeurs to gawk at. I positively retch when I see mannequins without even those perfunctory pieces of clothing on, their private parts insultingly blanked out, and laid to roost in some dingy corner of a shop. How hard is it to have at least put a robe of some sort to cover their modesty? It is their job to expose themselves, you say. And who are you to decide that, sir, I ask in return. You can bloody well do it yourselves, instead of subjecting these locomotively disabled beings to this daily pain.

Mannequins have the right to keep all their body parts together in one place.

I see that the latest trend to hit the torture circuit is that of decapitation. I cannot help but wonder if this is a direct response to my vociferous activism – do you think that by lopping off these helpless creatures’ heads you can kill off this movement? Ideologically, you can’t, because this is an ethical revolution that’s fated to succeed; and physically you can’t either as mannequins have their brains in their legs. They can’t move, remember. What the heck did you think they needed legs for? Your weak counter-arguments can be reduced to two key points: convenience and saving space.

A month old manhunt for a prolific serial killer was called off when the police belatedly found out that the alleged body parts that washed up ashore belonged to remarkably well-crafted but dismembered mannequins, and not human beings.

Unbelievable! Would any sane man decapitate his pet dog – we established earlier that animals are on a lower ethical plane than mannequins – because he’s running out of space? Imagine cutting off your sister’s head because she has cheekbones that go well with the new line of shades you’re selling, and naturally you don’t need the rest of her. Mannequins get all this done to them, and worse. Some of them are forced to endure the grotesque spectacle of not only being decapitated but forced to hold their head in their hands.

A strange new spectacle greets you when you walk into Store Number Googol on Commercial Street – the shop has rows and rows of mannequins, but absolutely no shelves at all. A grinning shopkeeper explained to us that they were inspired by a study that linked greater profits to greater numbers of mannequins in the display windows; they decided to take the results a step further and not stock anything at all.

Mannequins have the right to not work all the time.

Informally, I have made this demand before. Perhaps even more than once. But I unabashedly repeat it here once again, in a formal framework, because I believe this is the most achievable of the lot. My demand is simple: when your work with the mannequins is done and when your shop is shut, take them down, and put them to bed. Is it really that difficult? All you have to do is arrange a cosy haystack or two and let your collection of mannequins rest their overworked backs for a bit.

Accept your silent, unmoving brethren, and show a little love. After all, don’t you love your Arnold Schwarzenegger? OK, he’s silent but not unmoving; but when he moves, it’s only to fire a big bad machine gun right? Accept your silent, unmoving, peaceful brethren, and show a little love.