Makeup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U&eurl=
I don't usually like to put movies or other people's work in my blog in any way, but I thought this was interesting.
I thought I was being clever, cropping my (dreadful) pics and enhancing the color and shadows and stuff. Whew!
I don't wear makeup. For a long time, I felt it was wrong to wear it: dishonest and artificial, at least for me, and a sexist statement that women can't be okay right out of the box without some kind of surface repair. I still feel that way to a certain extent, but it's not such a hot-button issue any more.
I don't care what anybody else does with their faces. Now I just don't know how to do it properly, and people are used to me the way I am. It's not entirely just a function of laziness, though there is an element of that going on.
I can't see how a lot of unnatural colors and shadows and... grease... would make me more acceptable. It certainly wouldn't fool anyone. I know that people set a lot of store by appearances. I try not to do that, but it happens sometimes, since everything in our culture seems to be obsessed with surfaces. I nip it in the bud with vigor when I see it happening in myself.
If somebody only likes you when you're wearing a mask, what happens when the mask comes off? Or do you have to keep it on all the time, keep retiring to privacy to repair it, hide when you're being real?
And, since nobody is fooled into thinking that one's genuine appearance is the made-up state, is it just the process, the work involved, the acknowledgement that you aren't okay without some kind of chemical enhancement, that is valued by the people who care about such things? And do I want people like that to have the power to judge me?
Some day, I'm going to have to bestir my lazy butt and do a whole Make Up Thing and go out in public and note the reactions of both strangers and people I know. I hope it doesn't just confirm my cynicism, but that's what I expect to happen.
So, if you both read me and know me in "real life," be prepared.
I don't usually like to put movies or other people's work in my blog in any way, but I thought this was interesting.
I thought I was being clever, cropping my (dreadful) pics and enhancing the color and shadows and stuff. Whew!
I don't wear makeup. For a long time, I felt it was wrong to wear it: dishonest and artificial, at least for me, and a sexist statement that women can't be okay right out of the box without some kind of surface repair. I still feel that way to a certain extent, but it's not such a hot-button issue any more.
I don't care what anybody else does with their faces. Now I just don't know how to do it properly, and people are used to me the way I am. It's not entirely just a function of laziness, though there is an element of that going on.
I can't see how a lot of unnatural colors and shadows and... grease... would make me more acceptable. It certainly wouldn't fool anyone. I know that people set a lot of store by appearances. I try not to do that, but it happens sometimes, since everything in our culture seems to be obsessed with surfaces. I nip it in the bud with vigor when I see it happening in myself.
If somebody only likes you when you're wearing a mask, what happens when the mask comes off? Or do you have to keep it on all the time, keep retiring to privacy to repair it, hide when you're being real?
And, since nobody is fooled into thinking that one's genuine appearance is the made-up state, is it just the process, the work involved, the acknowledgement that you aren't okay without some kind of chemical enhancement, that is valued by the people who care about such things? And do I want people like that to have the power to judge me?
Some day, I'm going to have to bestir my lazy butt and do a whole Make Up Thing and go out in public and note the reactions of both strangers and people I know. I hope it doesn't just confirm my cynicism, but that's what I expect to happen.
So, if you both read me and know me in "real life," be prepared.