saltless as chalk

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The Great Gatsby, Those Costumes, and the Representation of History in Art

cwnerd12:

I’ve been tumbling historical dresses for so long that it’s gotten to the point that I can’t watch historically-set movies with inaccurate costumes.  I have to look at each costume and pick out every little detail they get wrong and eventually I can’t tell you what happened in the story, only what was wrong.    A Russian friend of mine says that in Russia little inaccuracies are called “cranberries growing on trees” (or just “cranberries”) because as we know, cranberries grow in a bog, not on trees.  It’s a very useful phrase that I’ve found myself using and confusing people with.

Since Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby is at the height of its promotional orgy and I can’t turn on the TV or go to any popular website without being toasted by Leonardo DiCaprio, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the costuming.  I’ll just say that I probably wouldn’t last the first ten minutes.  I can’t point out every little cranberry because there are so many of them, and it’s not just about the little details they get wrong.

I’ll be honest and say that I loved Moulin Rouge! and its costuming.  When you have a crowd of aristocratic French gentlemen in top hats dancing in time together and singing lines from Smells Like Teen Spirit, the fact that  Nicole Kidman is wearing a showgirl costume more at home in 1960s Los Vegas rather than fin-de-siécle Paris is really beside the point.  It’s one of the few movies where everything is so outlandish that I can forget about the costumes and focus back on the story.

The Great Gatsby is very different.  Rather than being Luhrman’s own story and vision, it’s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s.  It’s a story that must be understood in terms of his own time and place and reflected as such.   One of the things that absolutely drives me insane when seeing “modern takes” on 1920s fashion is making the dresses skin-tight and impossible to do the charleston or lindy-hop in.  The flapper dress is a dress made for movement.  This is why they often come adorned with fringe and spangles and long streamers of fabric: to emphasize movement while dancing.  At the same, time, it’s about so much more than just dancing.  The fashion of the 1920s is a complete rejection of the tight, rigid feminine morality of the Victorian and Edwardian era.  Rather than being passive, dainty, and demure and hiding themselves away, flappers wanted to be in on the party. More importantly, they saw more to life than finding a husband.  When you make a flapper’s dress tight and clingy, you’re taking away what she valued most: her freedom.

This is why getting costuming and details right is important to me as an artist and history geek.  It’s not just about understanding how peopled dressed, there’s the question of why people dressed that way.  After all, what reflects how you live and what kind of person you are more intimately than your clothes?  When details are wrong, the lessons and importance of the past are muddled and softened.  The flapper becomes just a pretty dress and not a radical and powerful instrument of social change.  The past is romanticized and we begin to yearn for “the good old days” that never really existed.

(via milkchandelier)

40,402 notes

Here’s the thing. Men in our culture have been socialized to believe that their opinions on women’s appearance matter a lot. Not all men buy into this, of course, but many do. Some seem incapable of entertaining the notion that not everything women do with their appearance is for men to look at. This is why men’s response to women discussing stifling beauty norms is so often something like “But I actually like small boobs!” and “But I actually like my women on the heavier side, if you know what I mean!” They don’t realize that their individual opinion on women’s appearance doesn’t matter in this context, and that while it might be reassuring for some women to know that there are indeed men who find them fuckable, that’s not the point of the discussion.

Women, too, have been socialized to believe that the ultimate arbiters of their appearance are men, that anything they do with their appearance is or should be “for men.” That’s why women’s magazines trip over themselves to offer up advice on “what he wants to see you wearing” and “what men think of these current fashion trends” and “wow him with these new hairstyles.” While women can and do judge each other’s appearance harshly, many of us grew up being told by mothers, sisters, and female strangers that we’ll never “get a man” or “keep a man” unless we do X or lose some fat from Y, unless we moisturize//trim/shave/push up/hide/show/”flatter”/paint/dye/exfoliate/pierce/surgically alter this or that.

That’s also why when a woman wears revealing clothes, it’s okay, in our society, to assume that she’s “looking for attention” or that she’s a slut and wants to sleep with a bunch of guys. Because why else would a woman wear revealing clothes if not for the benefit of men and to communicate her sexual availability to them, right? It can’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that it’s hot out or it’s more comfortable or she likes how she looks in it or everything else is in the laundry or she wants to get a tan or maybe she likes women and wants attention from them, not from men?

The result of all this is that many men, even kind and well-meaning men, believe, however subconsciously, that women’s bodies are for them. They are for them to look at, for them to pass judgment on, for them to bless with a compliment if they deign to do so. They are not for women to enjoy, take pride in, love, accept, explore, show off, or hide as they please. They are for men and their pleasure.

Why You Shouldn’t Tell That Random Girl On The Street That She’s Hot » Brute Reason (via brute-reason)

This article is on point.

(via lauratheoutlandish)

(via lauratheoutlandish)

8,184 notes

fairgroundsoldier: THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION! Greeting card turns children’s “Muslim” doll into “Terrorist” doll The card features a photo of a Muslim doll with a Hijab (headscarf) that many Muslim women wear out of religious observance. The The talking bubbles placed on top of the doll’s photo read, “The Talking Doll, Pull string for message, if you dare,” and “She’ll Love You To Death! She’ll Blow Your Brains Out!” The inside of the card reads “Hope your birthday is a BLOW OUT!” The card is produced by NobleWorks Inc. with credit for its design given to “Ron Kanfi” according to the company’s website, www.nobleworkcards.com. The motto of the company printed under their logo on the back of the card is “modern cards for modern people.” Notice that nothing identifies this doll as a terrorist in the minds of the card designers other than that she wears a Hijab. Moreover, she – like many Muslim girl who choose to wear the Hijab – is a smiling, non-threatening normal-looking female wearing a pink Hijab and a flower-patterned dress. The unmistakable message behind the “humor” is that even the most peaceful looking Muslims are synonymous and exchangeable with terrorists. To make matters more disturbing, the card is based on an actual doll designed by Desi Doll Company (www.desidollcompany.com) called “Aamina, the Muslim Doll.” The doll teaches kids religious greetings and sayings in Arabic with messages like “Assalamu Alaikum is the Muslim greeting, and it means peace be upon you” and “Let’s play together insha’Allah, insha’Allah means if God wills it.” Contact the makers of the greetings card and let them know that you do NOT think that stereotyping Muslim women and girls is OK. Ask them if they would get a chuckle out of their daughters growing up exposed to messaging that criminalizes their basic identity for profit. (CAIR-Chicago has written an official letter to the company sharing its concerns.) As always, be firm and polite. NobleWorks Cards: 1-855-267-3163 He Who Eats Mud (local Chicago store that is selling the card): (773) 525-0616

fairgroundsoldier:

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION!

Greeting card turns children’s “Muslim” doll into “Terrorist” doll

The card features a photo of a Muslim doll with a Hijab (headscarf) that many Muslim women wear out of religious observance. The The talking bubbles placed on top of the doll’s photo read, “The Talking Doll, Pull string for message, if you dare,” and “She’ll Love You To Death! She’ll Blow Your Brains Out!” The inside of the card reads “Hope your birthday is a BLOW OUT!”

The card is produced by NobleWorks Inc. with credit for its design given to “Ron Kanfi” according to the company’s website, www.nobleworkcards.com. The motto of the company printed under their logo on the back of the card is “modern cards for modern people.”

Notice that nothing identifies this doll as a terrorist in the minds of the card designers other than that she wears a Hijab. Moreover, she – like many Muslim girl who choose to wear the Hijab – is a smiling, non-threatening normal-looking female wearing a pink Hijab and a flower-patterned dress. The unmistakable message behind the “humor” is that even the most peaceful looking Muslims are synonymous and exchangeable with terrorists.

To make matters more disturbing, the card is based on an actual doll designed by Desi Doll Company (www.desidollcompany.com) called “Aamina, the Muslim Doll.” The doll teaches kids religious greetings and sayings in Arabic with messages like “Assalamu Alaikum is the Muslim greeting, and it means peace be upon you” and “Let’s play together insha’Allah, insha’Allah means if God wills it.”

Contact the makers of the greetings card and let them know that you do NOT think that stereotyping Muslim women and girls is OK. Ask them if they would get a chuckle out of their daughters growing up exposed to messaging that criminalizes their basic identity for profit. (CAIR-Chicago has written an official letter to the company sharing its concerns.)

As always, be firm and polite.

NobleWorks Cards: 1-855-267-3163

He Who Eats Mud (local Chicago store that is selling the card): (773) 525-0616

(Source: hannibalitus, via peppers-pray)

512 notes

Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can’t help themselves not only drives home the point that woman’s sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men’s sexual behavior.
Jessica Valenti “The Purity Myth” (via ginger818)

(Source: gingerfemnazi, via longdivisionnnn)

1,551 notes

feministdisney: Beast admitted that this was, indeed, a poor defense of his ideas, and he eventually realized that he was dismissing the valid and thoughtful viewpoints of many people that agreed with Belle by claiming some sort of de-sensitized superiority.

feministdisney:

Beast admitted that this was, indeed, a poor defense of his ideas, and he eventually realized that he was dismissing the valid and thoughtful viewpoints of many people that agreed with Belle by claiming some sort of de-sensitized superiority.

(via feministdisney)

6,336 notes

wondermaid:

don’t give young boys props for “being persistent” with girls. it’s not a good thing. at best it’s annoying and at worst, harassment. when a girl doesn’t want to talk to you, it’s not a challenge. you’re not supposed to “chase” her. you’re supposed to leave her alone.

(via toomanystarstocount)