POSITIVE THINKING : In a Division of the Morgan Agency in Costa Mesa, Healthy-Looking Models Put Another Face on HIV and AIDS
Model Rebekka Armstrong leaned over to give a photographer a hug after a long afternoon photo session. But she fell forward and stumbled. “Sorry,” she said softly, “it’s the dementia.” She wasn’t whirling from a hard day’s work. Rebekka Armstrong has AIDS, and she is suffering from one of its side effects. The conversations that followed were not about her eyes, her makeup or her best side. She chatted about doctors, drugs and T-cell counts, and it was clear that this former Playboy Playmate is a giant reality-check apart from the hoard of other hopefuls striking a pose to make a buck. After her diagnosis in 1989, she was alone. Less than a year ago, she drank a case of beer daily, lived in residential back yards and “never talked to anyone.” Now, she’s among the 40 models age 20 to 45 in the Proof Positive Division of the Morgan Agency in Costa Mesa, a group of people with HIV and AIDS who hope their fresh, healthy appearance will spread a stronger message about the virus that has infected an estimated 750,000 to 1 million people nationwide.
The men have muscles and rugged good looks, and the women sparkle with the healthy complexions of a Noxzema ad. They are the new faces of HIV--quite a contrast from the image of emaciated patients dying in hospital beds, said Morgan Agency president Keith Lewis.
The idea for the Proof Positive division, Lewis said, came to him after he had received a steadily increasing number of calls for HIV-positive models to promote products marketed for the AIDS community. Since the division was formed, many of the Proof Positive models have also promoted other products and companies not affiliated with the virus.
“There are so many people out there living with the disease (who) don’t fill a certain stereotype,” Lewis said. “They are very conscious about their health, and we think it’s important to show them. We feel good about ushering in the new face of HIV.”
After Lewis began his search for HIV-infected models to start the division a year ago, he said there were a few agency clients that were “a little nervous” about having models with the virus working at the Morgan Agency. But as the months passed, the models have been accepted in the industry, and the Proof Positive division is the fastest growing segment of the agency, he says.
The idea for the Proof Positive division, Lewis said, came to him after he had received a steadily increasing number of calls for HIV-positive models to promote products marketed for the AIDS community. Since the division was formed, many of the Proof Positive models have been hired on their looks alone to promoted other products and companies not affiliated with the virus.
Lewis said he met controversy after one of the Proof Positive models appeared in a national ad that critics say exploits the afflicted and incites fear among HIV-infected patients.
The ad, featuring Christopher Crays of Costa Mesa, was for Advera, a nutritional supplement promoted by Ross Products Division of Abbott Laboratories as effective against progressive weight loss. Progressive weight loss, or wasting syndrome, leads to malnutrition, one of the leading causes of AIDS-related deaths.
The print ad shows Crays, wearing a tank top and gym shorts, sitting on the living room floor next to a pair of running shoes.
“I never worried too much about nutrition,” the ad reads. “Then my doctor told me I was HIV-positive. Now I do everything I can to maintain my energy, strength and quality of life.” The national campaign has taken most of its hits from John Stansell, M.D., medical director of San Francisco General Hospital’s AIDS Clinic, who calls the disease-specific pitch “a disgusting distortion.”
“The advertising gives the impression that every HIV-positive person needs to be taking supplements,” he said.
“Advera is a good product. But most (HIV) patients don’t need Advera if they eat balanced meals,” he said. “When I heard the radio ads, I was really angry. It was the way they pitched it to the entire HIV community, as if all patients needed it. They used fear, really, I believe, to turn a profit.”
Neither executives from Ross Products or LCF & L, the New York agency that created the ad, returned phone calls.
Crays, 35, who has been HIV-positive for more than six years, said he is proud of the campaign, the product and his recognition as “the Advera man.” He said that he and a lot of other HIV-positive patients are taking a proactive approach to their health instead of a reactive one.
“The likelihood is that this (virus) is probably going to kick me in the butt. I don’t want to live my life like that,” said Crays, who also heads the Life AIDS Lobby in Sacramento. “Nutrition is a very important part of my life.”
It is believed to be the first time that ads for an AIDS-related product have been marketed in the mass media, rather than being placed only in gay and lesbian publications.
Crays said the Advera campaign was also the largest in the history of the epidemic, something he considers an encouraging breakthrough.
“Although some people might be nervous, it’s been a positive thing for all of us. We have to get rid of this perception that we are all wasting away or on our deathbeds. . . . This is not a ‘them’ disease; this is an ‘us’ disease,” Crays said.
Proof Positive is the Morgan Agency’s fastest growing division both in model count and agency revenue, generating 10% of the talent and modeling agency’s business, Lewis said. He interviews all Proof Positive applicants at length, and only those who are comfortable with their HIV-positive status are signed with the 466-client agency. As far as exploitation, he said, there is none.
“Exploitation comes through ignorance. This is about education,” he said. “I’m able to go to bed at night and feel good about what I’m doing. I’m giving something back by sending a message to everyone that this could be you (with HIV), and hopefully restoring a certain amount of dignity along the way.”
Lewis also said that using models who have HIV in AIDS-related ads and public service announcements requires an honesty that isn’t always present in the advertising business.
“They don’t have to use models with HIV; they can hire actors to say they do,” he said. “But by using (models with HIV), we are offering a more accurate portrayal.”
“There’s a growing demographic out there in the mainstream, and using models with HIV to reach them helps them and gives the models work they might not have gotten,” he said.
Former real estate finance attorney Jim Ballard of Hollywood, who set a short-course 100-meter backstroke world record for his age group at Gay Games IV, is among those who have signed with the agency.
Standing 6 foot 4, the boyishly handsome Ballard is one of the division’s most successful models, currently promoting his own greeting card line.
“I’m not a model. I’m a face to connect with an epidemic,” said Ballard, 36. “And this really isn’t about modeling. It’s a way to say that there are people out there with HIV. This could be anybody.”
Ballard practiced law for 10 years in a large Los Angeles firm before fatigue and other symptoms of the virus made it too difficult to handle the 60- to 80-hour weeks that came with the job.
“I can’t really say that I like doing this more than practicing law; I love law. But I feel good about this and the message we’re sending,” he said. “It’s very important.”
Darrell Smith, 29, a Costa Mesa home health-care worker, said with a smile that he also isn’t a model, just an average guy.
“When I was first diagnosed, it was hard for me because I work with AIDS patients, and that’s all I saw,” he said. “I would go to work and think, ‘God, that’s going to be me.’ But now I say, ‘I’m not a victim. It’s not my whole life.’ ”
Smith said he was feeling tired and getting some other blood tests three years ago, so he had the doctor test him for HIV.
“I didn’t even give that test a second thought. I know people who are tested and agonize over it. I was sure it was negative,” he recalled.
Smith, who has also modeled for Advera, said working with the division has been a positive experience.
“If my face or my voice can tell people that anyone can get (HIV), I’ll be happy,” he said. “I don’t see it as exploitative at all. It’s informative.”
Giggling, and typing up her bio in the Morgan Agency’s booking room, Feliece Jones of Thousand Oaks has a smile that fits right in with the hundreds of 8-by-10 glossies on the wall.
“I’m a very spiritual person, so I don’t think about dying,” said Jones, one of the newest Proof Positive models. “That’s just not me. But if seeing my face can show people out there that they better get tested and protect themselves, then I’m happy to do it.”
Armstrong pushed aside a strand of long, wavy hair and spoke with innocent candor about AIDS and how it’s affected her life.
“When I found out, I hit the floor, literally,” she said. “Then I hit rock-bottom.”
She’s not sure how she contracted the virus, she said, adding that that doesn’t really matter. What matters to her now is staying healthy and speaking to teen-agers about HIV, protection and spreading the it-could-be-you message to everyone who will listen.
“When these kids come up to me after I speak, they say that it really means something to them that someone like me has this virus,” she said. “That’s really important to me, that I got through to them.”
Like the other models in the Proof Positive division, Armstrong has to worry about symptoms of the virus and how it affects her appearance.
“This morning, I saw this little crack in the corner of my mouth, and I thought, not my face, “ she said with a laugh.
Ballard said he doesn’t worry too much about small physical imperfections because “that’s what the airbrush is for.”
