how to: not pluck your eyebrows (like a vintage madonna)

 richard corman, madonna, 1982, “i shot madonna” in out magazine.

my photo of the day is vintage madonna by richard corman. he took this the year before her first album came out, before she got famous, etc., etc., bet you know the rest.

the best thing about this photograph? it’s the eyebrows. look at her eyebrows. fantastically wing-like, utterly un-plucked eyebrows. they’re amazing. where is a vogue editor when you need one? everybody should be copying this (i say this despite my own obsessively tweezed and arching brows. i just don’t have that great flared outer edge she does. so ok, maybe not everybody).

what makes them stand out particularly – and particularly beautifully – is how perfect and classical her makeup is, how it frames her brows as a deliberate absence of interference. the conscious groom-don’t-remove of body hair may be my favourite kind of ‘fuck you’ to the feminine norm. it’s like trimming your underarm hair instead of shaving it all off; or keeping your bush perfectly intact (including those curls which cross the sacred bikini line) and colouring it a vile shade of fuschia. it says ‘i have a very strong (optional: and feminine) aesthetic, and an exceptional personal grooming routine, but i don’t actually want to look like a prepubescent aryan with big tits. i choose to diversify and explore the full range of aesthetic options my body provides, not just the ones sanctioned by almighty vogue, elle and the holy bazaar.’

of course, there are ways to do this by or despite a wholistic dipilatory approach, too, but i’m just sayin’. some of your options include the artful retention of bodily hair.

and i do wish more people would try out these eybrows. they’re fucking fantastic. you could pull them off, i know you could. post pictures after, won’t you?

xn

mini update #4: marilyn, james, Scavengers and the DeVine.

nyx mathews and jo latham, flutesong pink (#2), digital photograph, 13.5x19cm, 2010.

the past two weeks have been insane. first i sold two photographs at a group exhibition, then i went to the training day for my shiny new job as a collumnist for DeVine , and then i got 1 and a 1/2 (ie, one article and an interview) articles published on The Scavenger. kinda super, super exciting.

My very first DeVine article can be found right here; it’s a feature piece about the ableist politics of (so-called) ‘environmentally sound’ eating habits, and the fine line between self-care and sustainable practices for people who live with a disability. and it was originally called ‘food is an ableist issue’, which of course i like better, but, you know, editors change that stuff all the time.

kristin baer as pamela swynford de beaufort and deborah ann woll as jessica hamby, film still, true blood, season 3, 2010.

the Scavenger article was a lot of fun, mostly because it’s on vampires, and i’m on a huge vampire pop-fiction kick at the moment. it’s pretty awesome when you get to publish writing that’s just stuff you’ve been ranting about anyway; in this case, the kickass female vampires who’ve recently popped up in mainstream television. my favourite is true blood‘s pam (as pictured above), but vampire diaries‘ katherine is pretty fantastic in her own right, and twilight‘s alice cullen also got a mention. i wanted to write about eli from let the right one in, too, but i might save her for another time. anyway, you can find the article here.

the interview i did with max attitude, on aesthetics and politics – and the politics of aesthetics – in femme and trans contexts. it’s only a segment of a much longer conversation we’re still having (it being a pretty huge subject and all). it’s fascinating because we come at things from such different directions; i am, really, an aesthetic theorist above and beyond all else. even my feminism is viewed through that lens rather than the other way around. aesthetics are, i think, possibly the most effective way to trace political history. whatever was going on, regardless of whether it was written down or talked about (or allowed to be written down or talked about) somewhere, somehow, it came out in art. but that’s a different article. this one’s about more literal, physical implications of politically astute aesthetic desires. i really do think it’s worth taking a look at, even if they’re not subjects you already know about.

paul gassenheimer, flutesong red, (marilyn munroe and james dean).

 

and somewhere in between all that jo latham and i did a photoshoot (that’s one of the pictures from it, up top) based on the above image of marilyn munroe and james dean, to go with the interview…

and raskolnikov was super cute. right now he’s sitting on my lap, mostly asleep, but for the purring. best hotwater-bottle ever.

mini update #1: glitter and inspiration.

whilst working on the cover for an upcoming publication i’m focussing my mind on things like the above.  beads, fairisle cardigans, tulle and gilt eyeliner all play a very vital role in a certain work in progress.

beautiful things: cindy sherman

cindy sherman, untitled (as marilyn munroe), 1982

 

(edit: well, that’s one problem fixed.  not happy yet, but this is a little better) i have realised that, in fact, i am not sold on this new layout after all.  it’s the fact that i can’t change the collumn widths.  i post far too many pictures for this tiny little space to be practical, and it’s going to drive me crazy.  alas, i am too tired, and have far too many words to write, to alter it now.  next week.

however, i will at least leave you with an image (which, i’m afraid, you may not be able to see clearly until i change the layout.  ah well, apologies) from the paper i’m writing.  it’s by the ever-intriguing, mystery-shrouded cindy sherman, and next week i may do a second post about her with actual, you know, analysis.  it seems disrespectful to do otherwise.  she’s so worth writing about.

beautiful and terrible: one pretty film, one awesome blog, one offensive blog post.

so to begin with, this may be one of my favourite commercial/cinematic dance sequences to date.  it’s from rob marshal’s nine, a film which is utterly sexist, but graced by stunning visuals, beautiful costumes, some gorgeous dance and song sequences, and judi dench playing a charming costumier (this last alone would have added significant points, but combined with the others…well, it was worth watching once, at least).  this clip features fergie (yes, of dubious black eyed peas fame), and though she and the other dancers seem to have gotten the bottom of the barrel, costume wise (look up marion cotillard’s wardrobe, for example, and you’ll see what i mean), the choreography is gorgeous.  i love tactile dance pieces, though they don’t come along terribly often; the percussive element alone is great (though a little more common – think of stomp, or tap dogs), but the use of sand is better.  sound obscure?  you really ought to watch the clip.

still from nine, directed and produced by Rob Marshall, 2009.

i also discovered, today, a pretty fantastic blog.  it’s called the seventeen magazine project and, as implied, it’s about, well, seventeen magazine (which is, for those neither in the know – good for you – or inclined to look it up – why would you bother? – one of those awful glossy rag-mags aimed at mutilating the aesthetic sensibilities, self-worth, and world view of teenaged girls).  the seventeen magazine project…’embraces’ all this.  it is the undertaking of one pennsylvanian highschool student to live, for an entire month, by the precepts of the june/july issue of seventeen.  by following this doctrine she hopes to ‘shed some light on the modern teenage experience’.  it’s pretty hilarious.  or at least, i enjoyed reading it.  it even includes pie-charts on, say, the number of current male ‘heart-throbs’ (does that really have a hyphon?  is it one word?  do i ditch the second ‘t’?) with some kind of vampire affiliation (for the record, that’s most of them).

still from nine, directed and produced by Rob Marshall, 2009 (because i refuse to post a picture of a seventeen cover instead).

less impressive by far is this post.  to begin with i feel compelled to state the obvious: ‘ftm’ and ‘butch’ are not synonymous.  they are two separate identities.  in some people they do coexist; in some they are melded together to form a complex whole.  but not all those who are ftm are butch, and not all who are butch are ftm.  to assume that ftm and butch are always part of the same continuum (a continuum in which, it is inferred, butch is, shall we say, a ‘softer’ version) is to violently undermine, and do great disservice to, both.  for a start, it creates a hierarchy (already present, in myriad forms, in both the lesbian and trans communities, but something i think we should be actively fighting, rather than perpetuating or condoning), whereby a female-to-male trans identity is superior to that of lesbian butch, and more than that, is perceived as some kind of ‘end point’ for all female-bodied people with more masculine identities. 

it also assumes that all ftm persons are inherently ‘masculine,’ which entirely disavows a capacity for personal gender identity, and – more importantly, i think – merely reaffirms the idea that our biological bodies (even if we alter them) must match our actions.  in other words, sex and gender must correlate.  boy bodies must coincide with boy behaviours, female bodies with male identities must enact masculine traits.  i take serious issue with this.  i also think it is, on any genuine, considered queer theoretical inspection, ridiculous.

in addition to these points, the article utterly negates the ways in which these identities, and elements of them, are constantly evolving, melding, breaking and reforming in communities and individuals, a process which allows men to be femme, trans persons to be genderqueer, femmes to be masculine, etc..  when you place identities on a sliding scale, instead of appreciating each as having the potential to be a new and disparate concept of its own, you not only bind them together in inescapable hierarchy; you disallow the wonder of interference, cross-pollination, blending; not only in individuals, but in whole subcultures, and the theoretical realms they so often spawn.

cinema worth seeing: jan svankmajer’s Alice

promotional shot of Mia Wasikowska as Alice in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, 2010

I didn’t write about it at the time, but a while ago I – like so many others – took the time to go and see the latest take on Alice in Wonderland, that questionable offering from odd-bedfellows Disney and Tim Burton. I was, I regret to say, rather disappointed. Of course it was beautiful – stunning, really, in parts – and the costumes were quite divine (which is usually enough to sell me on a film), but there was so much CGI that it overshadowed everything else; and let’s not even go into the atrocious details of those awful moments of ‘Disney-fication’ (if you’ve seen it I’m sure you know the ones) that, I suppose, must have come with the contract, and rather spoiled the mood of the piece entire. Then again, I knew from the outset that it was going to be about as far a cry as possible from my favorite version of the story to date, one Alice (1988) by Czech director Jan Svankmajer.

film still of Alice and the Mad Hatter, from Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, 1988

I first saw Svankmajer’s Alice some two years ago, drawn in by the name, and the promise of puppetry and stop-frame animation, and the film far exceeded my expectations. Not only does it utilize the tactile, old-school (retrospectively, that is) cinematic techniques to which the Alice stories lend themselves so beautifully, but it embraces the underlying discomfort I have always sensed in the original books, and which so many more romantic, beautified versions (consciously or unconsciously) overlook. I love the look and feel (and, lets face it, the unsettling nature) of the film as a work in itself, but more than that I appreciate the fact that it is actually one of the most faithful cinematic renditions of the book that I’ve yet encountered. It is, undoubtedly, creepy; but then again, when you think about it, isn’t Carroll’s original, too? Leaving aside the dubious interactions of the author with his underage muse, Alice in Wonderland is, when considered objectively, far from a wholesome and uplifting childish tale. It has much more in common with the grim reality-pushed-to-the-edge-of-nightmare style of storytelling that one finds in un-sanitized fairytales, than with the brightly coloured, watered-down fluff so often pushed at children today.

Alice, by John Tenniel, from the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

When you strip away the various pancake parlor and pastel-princess makeovers, Alice in Wonderland deals with some pretty disquieting issues. For a start there’s that socially uncomfortable oral fixation (usually bred or beaten out of children – particularly girls – by the time they learn how to dress themselves, but very much alive and well in Alice); I don’t think I know of any other heroine so prone to putting unknown substances in her mouth. But there are also a number of other, less obvious themes, more commonly dealt with in texts on psychoanalysis and the more gruesome of crime novels than your average children’s classic.

film still of Alice going down the ‘rabbit hole’, from Jan Svankmajer’s Alice, 1988

First there’s the constant stream of unpredictable metamorphosis, not only of the hero herself, but of her surroundings, companions and dietary staples, causing constant instability (though admittedly of the variety commonly more distressing to adult readers than children). Then there’s the consumption of sentient life-forms – those poor oysters, for example – which hints at cannibalism, or at the very least that squeamish feeling most people get when confronted with the realities of meat-as-living-creature, capable of experiencing pain, affection, etc. Hallucination plays another starring role, and though the whole story is sometimes argued as nothing more than a dream-sequence, Alice’s active engagement in it distances the fiction from the type of subconscious ramblings most readers are more familiar with. The heroine herself is also rather unsettling – even unacceptable, as girls go – on account of her highly antisocial behavior, and the nonchalance with which she encounters one odd and potentially dangerous person or situation after another. She has none of the anxiety and concern for her bodily safety so necessary to instill in girl children for the happy maintenance of western patriarchal society; Alice is one of those rare, rare creatures, a truly fearless heroine (another reason, in my view, why the Disney/Burton collaboration wasn’t up to scratch). She requires no hand-holding, no company in the dark; she gets up on her own, crawls through tunnels and into unknown spaces without fear (of unknown persons or unknown filth); feels safe and at ease enough with herself and her body to chase after and interact with strange (often male) creatures and persons, and consume – or rather, taste, that most underutilized and feared of the senses – anything that appears in her path. This act of consumption is in itself disturbing in a female-bodied character. Women and girls are, typically, that which is devoured – not the other way around. And let’s not forget the worrisome tumbling of little girls into dark, confined spaces, bare of protective influences or external aid. It may have been gussied up by Disney twice, now, but all the technicolour in the world won’t save Alice from being, at her core, a rather unsettling breed of hero.

conceptual art for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, 2010

And unlike the other versions I’ve seen, Svankmajer’s Alice shies away from none of this. However, that shouldn’t suggest that it’s any darker than Carroll’s original, because for all that it is true to the book’s more unsettling elements, there is also a sense of that quiet naivete that is always present, in its most extreme form, in those children prone to play by themselves, immersed in worlds of their own making. It has, more than anything, a quality that is not so much ‘dreamlike’ as ‘make-believe’, and though the difference is subtle and often missed, any imaginative child will tell you that there most definitely is one. Though the content of Alice in Wonderland – whether written down or portrayed in poignantly jerky stop-motion – is disturbing, seen through an adult lens, the genius of it is that, really, one suspects this could be true of many a childhood imaginary game. And ultimately, what disturbs us most is, I think, that what we – adults, readers, critics – find alarming, Alice takes surely in her stride, and more than that, into her control.

this is not the most cheerful post (and it has a trigger warning)

in fact this article has many trigger-warnings.  it involves rape, rapists, rape-methodology, and rape-supportive culture.  however.  it involves these things because it is a discussion of some new – pretty revolutionary – research being done on the topic of undetected, unincarcerated rapists.  if you can handle the triggers, it’s well worth reading.  not least because it doesn’t leave you with the same sick inevitable feeling one tends to get reading pretty much everything people write about rape.  in fact…this article actually finishes with some pretty awesome points on how undetected rape could be combatted in a very every-day manner (and again, this is sort of revolutionary; if only because this is rape we’re talking about, and we’re doing so in a culture which supports it, so communicating Things That Can Be Done To Change This is a pretty big deal).

so again.  if you can…you should read this.  it’s interesting.  and more than that, it’s not only relevant, it’s positive and maybe even helpful:

predator theory.

wonder of wonders.

intertextuality.

a large portion of my quota of literary longing is currently directed towards the glorious amanda palmer (of dresden dolls fame – infamy?)’s new book who killed amanda palmer.

not only does it have wonderous pictures – and a title that references david lynch’s twin peaks – but it also includes stories by neil gaiman.

truly.  how could one not covet this book?

beautiful things: monica cook (and the exquisite grotesque)

monica cook’s paintings are sumptuous, monstrous, stunning.  the work transgresses all western conventions on the portrayal of food and of women (subjects which, it must be said, are often treated much the same in art cannon).  the colours are rich and beautiful, they glow on the canvas; but instead of distant and jewel-like still lifes, cook instead creates works which ooze immediacy along with bodily fluids, almost to the point of invasiveness.  the images make stomachs turn, they avert eyes; the act of looking at them more than once becomes a deliberate choice, an active engagement with the image and its subject matter.

in this way cook defuses the common dichotomy of object and objectifier that infects so many images of female bodies.  cook’s nudes are not displayed, like the images in a recipe book, to be consumed with pleasure by a passing (male) onlooker.  they curdle in the belly, revolt and fascinate, and are so much more than simply an acquired taste.

perhaps the most extraordinary achievement in cook’s work, from a visual-feminist perspective, is the way in which she uses subject matter that ought not, in and of itself, to be disgusting to the status quo.  in fact it’s quite the opposite: images of food and of naked female bodies – and sometimes the two combined – adorn some of the most hallowed walls of the art world.  they are, as it were, two of the most foolhardy subjects a painter could choose in order to elicit audience satisfaction with minimal effort (that is, after all, the beauty of the female body as a topic.  it needn’t be extraordinary, just as long as there are visible breasts).  but when combined – not in the sanitized manner of a 19^th century exotic: a glowing bowl of fruit and a reclining woman, side by side but never touching – they become something quite different.

the process of eating has always been taboo for women.  nobody wants to see it; the grotesqueries of mastication, or the mess of teeth, guts, runaway pulp.  nobody wants to recognize the suggestion that, below those resolutely pallid skins, lurks raw flesh, intestines, bowels, cunts, and olfactory discharges.  nobody wants, visualized, the way female bodies actually work.  to think about it is to be sickened on socialized instinct.  it’s like seeing what goes into making a sausage, only worse, because that you can laugh off once the evidence has been literally consumed.  women are not so easy to dispatch.  we necessarily linger and, thus, the mainstream is in a constant state of anxiety lest one should, at any moment, burst her manicured carapace and spill ghastly ‘feminine’ ichors all over the place.  hence the prevalence of airbrushing, sterilized tampons, and vapid smiles in the western pop tradition – or hairless ‘beauties’, disabled by their own ludicrous proportions, in the ‘high arts’.

cook’s works are refreshing in their stomach-turning tangibility, and the visual conundrum of how the simple elements of food and female form can be combined with such a repulsive result; the essence of their beauty is in the pedestrian nature of their elements, and the extraordinary effect of the sum of parts.

the latest in a long line of failed experiments: how to say ‘no’ (trigger warning)

how fucked, frankly, is this?  although i do think that fostering assertiveness and negotiation skills in girls and young women is important it is not, at all, the root of the problem. until we discuss consent in schools, and change attitudes about the availability of (predominantly) female bodies, and the male ‘right to sex’ – not to mention step up and make rape a real and vitally serious crime, not just something society pretends to frown on in public and in writing, while condoning gender-based violence through action, policy, and media – this is going to be a problem.

women do not need, in addition to the myriad of pre-existing tag-lines, to be told that violence and rape are their fault because – though they were taught how in school – they just didn’t say ‘no’ assertively enough.

point of fact: one ‘no’, however softly said, ought to be enough.