Australia's Next Top Stigma: Mental illness should still be hidden

Quite a contrast to her social media image ... Charlotte Dawson at Cosmopolitan Shoes, Knox St, Double Bay. Source: News Limited

Their aim in life is to make a profit from getting really good looking people to make average schmucks like the rest of us feel even more inadequate. But hey, buy this overpriced mixture of perfume and petroleum product. Or ludicrous looking pair of sunglasses. Buy aspiration in attractive packaging.

So it should be no surprise that a group like Chic Celebrity Management turned up their perfectly pore-refined noses at Charlotte Dawson's imperfections. But it kind of is, because you would have thought we'd moved on a bit in the mental health stakes.

Chic wrote to Dawson - whom they describe on their website as "a fixture on Australian and New Zealand television screens … most well-known as the outspoken and sometimes controversial judge on 'Australia's Next Top Model'" - yesterday.

They suggested she find new management because she's been open about her mental health issues.

"Your brand is no longer seen as aspirational," they wrote.

"The last couple of weeks you've been particularly active on social media, and it has been very dramatic with two hospital visits, then a few days later images from the Lexus Marquee at the Races as well as your continued anti-trolling stance."

She is too open, honest, confronting, is "not seen as stable", making "brand ambassador roles almost unfeasible".

Much better this morning x should be out today. Picture: Charlotte Dawson/Instagram Source: Supplied

The effect of this effective dumping is to help maintain the stigma around mental health.

Almost half of us will experience mental health issues. And no, it's not something to "aspire" to, not in the way that celebrity brands want you to aspire to thinness, wellness, richness. Entire business models are built on that sort of aspiration - the sort of wanting that will never be fulfilled, and indeed can lead to all sorts of anxieties.

All sorts of mental health issues, even.

As Dawson tweeted, mental illness is such a pain (in) the freaking arse. And people don't aspire to it. But maybe they aspire to be more like Dawson, who is (painfully) open about her issues, who takes the fight to the trolls that say they want to see her dead, who can talk about all the shit in her life.

As opposed to bottling it up and buying face creams that promise a new you.

Chic say she's damaged her brand so she can't be a good brand ambassador. Maybe they should find something she can be an ambassador for. Mental health, maybe.

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