Posts by Jolisa
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Hmm. As I recall, if anything, Big Op Shop/mod/punk/goth etc came to me even more subversively and insidiously than via traditional advertising channels. Yes, I actively embraced these looks -- and looked damn fine in them! -- with all possible agency as the only plausible escape from Fashion TM... and yet, I didn't come up with them all by my little self, and likely would never have invented them from scratch.
True, the Old Papatoetoe op shop didn't make a huge profit off my fashion addiction, but small alternative magazines were kept going for weeks longer than they might have otherwise, and certain hair dye manufacturers still speak my name with respect.
I dunno. It's lovely and empowering to toss around words like agency, negotiate, dialogue, interpellation, performativity, etc etc. I do it all the time, sometimes in academic papers, often while shopping. And then, in the deep dark quiet of my dressing room or my office, I admit to myself that I have no idea precisely why this year's clothes and make-up look and ideas and buzzwords feel so excellent today and are guaranteed to look a bit tragic 5 years from now, and then, like clockwork, appear charmingly dated again 10 years from now. We're all in the grip of something that I can only conclude has some obscure evolutionary purpose as well as infallible capitalist logic.
Emma, I hear you on the matter of your daughter's clothing choices. By the time I figured out that under all my layers of clothing was a body at the absolute pinnacle of youthful peachiness, it wasn't any more. I strategically bare more of it now than ever, "perfection" be damned. But oh how I wish I could go back and strut my stuff a trifle more; of course, I didn't at the time because i was scared of the male gaze and the actions that so often follow that gaze, so, uh... yes, pretty much full-circle on the original post, then.
(With an added wistful sign for the nudist holidays of my childhood... Bodies are comical and lovely and perhaps we should all see more of them more often, so we could relax and stop demonizing the brave silly beautiful ones who bare the flesh at the disco so the rest of us don't have to.)
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Timely newsflash: ill-advised outfits just another business opportunity. Whatever it is, capitalism knows you want it.
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And because I think JasonP has a point, if not one that's popular here, I'm kind of intrigued by how fricking uncomfortable is the attire that many young women (myself once included) wear to "feel comfortable about themselves" while out and about.
Freezing cold night in any city with cobbled streets, and there they all are: pelmet miniskirts, bare legs, boob tubes, tottery high heels. Er, why??!
I mean, I'm more than happy to bare as much cleavage as is legal - it's my best feature, dammit - but prefer also not to get hypothermia and to be able to run for a bus (or from a baddie) if I have to.
Not judging, just... well, OK, probably judging; or at least questioning someone else's judgement. Boggling, I suppose, while not excusing any behaviour (other than boggling) directed at the young women in question.
The funny thing is, if the lads were also out in hotpants, heels, and pasties, I'd consider it a matter of youf culture and leave it at that.
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WRT the Listener, I do love the book reviews ... while wishing there was another weekly for which to write them.
I must say, too, that the Listener is particularly egregious in its gratutious use of slim, young, white female bodies to publicise its me-me-me story of the week (nice one, Andy). In fact, there does not seem to be a story they cannot creatively publicise with a T-shirt stretched winningly across a pert pair of tits.
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I'm waiting anxiously for the 'hey, could you not harass people, APB dudes?' PSAs, because they don't seem to make very many. There are quite a lot of the 'chicks, look out!' ones, though.
Reminds me of the anecdote (Inga Muscio's?) about the city (Seattle? Portland?) in which the police put up posters saying "Attention women! There is a rapist at large in the area. Please be cautious and travel in groups, or else..." etc
So the local women put up posters saying "Attention rapist! There are ANGRY WOMEN at large in the area. Please be cautious, because if we find you, we will..." etc.
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It was Snake River Canyon. :)
Gah - and it's Evel, not Evil. I stand (astride my throbbing stunt motorbike) corrected.
Actually, no, I'm scrabbling in the lingerie drawer for a new corset, having bust the old one watching Shatner do Palin. OMFG. Thank you Danielle!
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Wow, 3410, thanks for the verbatim quote. You betcha that syntax is pure Palin, also.
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excuse me if I roll my eyes at solo mothers becoming a new class of Angels of the Hearth.
Roll them all the way back around to the front, dude. Like Danielle said, you're Evil Knievel revving up to jump the Grand Canyon there.
"Not demonising" doesn't equal "canonising" except in a particularly fevered imagination. Should we pass the smelling salts?
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You could be onto something there, Tom. They've already come for the evening classes.
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My ladybits and I, we feel extra valued under National. Oh yes.
And by "valued" you mean... yep, I know exactly what you mean.
I'd wager that another crucial part of the Palin/Bennett thing is their (conventional) attractiveness. A toothpaste beauty-queen smile can cover a multitude of sins. See also Phyllis Schafly and, er, I dunno, John Edwards, just to even things out?