I have decided that glitter eye makeup will save the world.
I said in an email conversation:
And to think about whether or not the world would be a happier place if EVERYONE wore glitter eye makeup (or was free to without any sort of gender policing.)
Picture the construction worker on the corner with glitter eye makeup. Picture your fourth grade teacher. Picture John McCain. Come on, isn’t that a happy thought?
And I’m sticking to it.
Could you declare war in glitter eye makeup? Could you punch someone in the face? Think about how much happier the world would be if everyone spent just a few minutes in the morning playing around with pretty things for themselves.
Look at Siouxsie. Isn’t she fabulous? How could you not smile and laugh things off if you had this much sparkle and shine going on
Makeup like this isn’t some patriarchy-pleasing dollops of blush and red lip gloss just bright enough to make you look postcoital but not bright enough to rub off on the man who might kiss you.
And glitter drawings on your forehead combined with eye-lengthening liquid liner and lipstick–on a man? Oh, Bowie, you blur those lines so deliciously.
Makeup and clothing can be so much more than just means of attraction. They can be means of subversion, but most importantly, a means of celebration.
I used to draw exaggerated eyes on myself back in my goth days. Now I buy mineral shadows in every color of the rainbow (dollar samples from this site, BTW. love them!) and paint my eyelids with streaks of shimmer and shine.
I put on makeup for myself. Clothing gets noticed by others, but sparkle makeup is something I do for me, my time in the bathroom in the morning before I see the rest of the world, where I dip into my palette like the artist I’ll never be and paint myself a face.
I can’t find any pictures from A Game of You (which used to be one of my least-loved of the Sandman stories, but which I keep quoting lately), but in that story Barbie, who in A Doll’s House was a typical blonde pretty girl, has decided to use makeup in a completely different way. She draws a chessboard or a veil on her face, obscuring her pretty-girl features and making the idea of makeup front and center, the illusion that it is.
And Courtney Love, whose entire existence can be seen as one huge subversion of femininity, used and abused makeup throughout her career, but always pointed out the very obviousness of it as a device.
And that’s what’s so fabulous about it, after all. To quote Ms. Love, “I fake it so real I am beyond fake.” What’s wrong with artificial? Artificial was always set up as the “good” side of the debate when it was man vs. nature and women were nature. (See, oh, eleventymillion feminist theorists.) Why is artificial so bad when it comes to gender?
Perhaps because by making gender artificially exaggerated, we point out that it is, after all, a performance. A game of you.
And so. Glitter makeup will save the world.
Ten points to the first person to post me a photoshopped pic of John McCain in glitter eye makeup.
(This post brought to you by the department of Sarah woke up too early and is caffeinated. Now I’m off to download Hole videos. And have I really not posted that Courtney Love essay I wrote weeks ago? Goodness! Must rectify.)
YES! I love this! Unlike other makeups, glitter cannot be worn without a sense of humor. Everyone critiques Judy Butler’s ideas of gender parody because others may not know you’re being ironic and just take your mini skirt and high heels as a reinforcement of stereotype.
Glitter may be the answer to this conundrum. It’s whimsical, goofy, extravagant, gorgeous, and utterly ridiculous! Win-win!
Also, anything bowie does (or even THINKS about doing) ever is probably the answer to all problems that there are.
What’s your thesis on? I had heard all these great things about Love and Theft (It’s so good, Bob Dylan named an album after it!), so I finally decided to pick it up and my mind was so blown. The thing is, the blackface stuff is really interesting and all, but more than anything Lott’s kaleidoscopic research methods show all academic writers how it’s DONE. Too Fabu.
love it
Okay, you and Kim and Ren are totally my new favorite people. I’m glad other people out there share my views on makeup (and the illustrious Ms. Love - I’ve been having a renaissance of sorts and listening to Hole and L7 obsessively for the past few months). I love ridiculous clothes, bright colors and nonsensical eye makeup. Yeah, I work in an office (where I am thankfully allowed to wear toned-down versions of my going-out clothes) and yeah, I’m a mom and yeah, I’ll be thirty in a couple of years. But fuck it. Siouxsie passed the 30 mark how many years ago? Still performing. Courtney’s well over 40, and while she is batshit insane, she still rocks the house (yeah, I own America’s Sweetheart, what of it?). And Bowie…well, you can’t fuck with the master - even though he’s more prone to suits and things now, he’s never, like, disowned his former personna. He just realizes that it’s a lot of work. So even now, on the rare occasion I get to go out, I throw on some fancy blue and yellow eyeshadow or some Amy Winehouse-looking cat-eye liner. And even though I don’t have the rest of the garb, I do still have my Plasmatics T-shirt and I can still strut my shit, because my sparkle-y face makes me feel fabulous. (Also - POST THE COURTNEY LOVE ESSAY. I’m dyyyyying to find out what it says.)
Twisty and you often come up one after another in my RSS feed, and some days it makes me dizzy. Today was one of the those days.
Dizzy now…
“Could you declare war in glitter eye makeup? Could you punch someone in the face?”
You might not be able to declare war or punch someone while wearing glitter eye make up, but you sure could have war declared against you, or get punched, for doing so.
High school. 1986. Eyeliner. I was THERE!
YES! FFS, Cyndi was right, you know…sometimes…girls do JUST wanna have fun.
I come out of lurking to post my horrible photoshop; http://sliesen.googlepages.com/MCCAIN.jpg
source (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/04/08/canon-fodder-john-mccain-knows-odysseus-pain.aspx) if anyone else wants to give it a go, this image is kinda perfect.
Glitter makeup ftw.
I <3 glitter!!!!
It’s time that somebody recognized its karmic healing, peaceful, beautiful, fierce glitteriness for what it is!!
I’m gonna go join the Glitter Revolution (aka the disco movement… just kidding!) right now.
Very true. Life is short, why not play?
Exactly this!
Mostly, my attitude about makeup is (and has pretty much always been) “uses time better spent on other things” - but if I’m gonna spend the time to paint my face, I damn well want the result to be fun. “The natural look”, as something achieved by using makeup, is mind-blowingly oxymoronic.
Sunflower
This totally made me smile. Love it!
I’ll respond to this call to arms!
“Also, anything bowie does (or even THINKS about doing) ever is probably the answer to all problems that there are.”
Never a truer word spoken.
Fantastic post. You’re becoming one of my very favourite bloggers.
this post wins the whole internet. honest. you hooked me with the sparkle make-up, and *had* me with Gaiman.
(here via Uncool)
Lovely post!
Have you read Julia Serano’s Barrette Manifesto?
I think you’d like it. ^.^
I love how much everyone loves this post!
Today will definitely see the Courtney Love essay
LOVE IT!
And I love that you love The Sandman!
(Could be it’s time for me to read the series again, as suddenly Dream etc is popping up all over.)
Shine on!
You’re so right. Just read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf - ages old but interesting. Agreed with much said but also kept thinking… “Yeah, but makeup… it is much, much more than getting some bloke to cop off with you”, as you say… ‘Makeup and clothing can be so much more than just means of attraction. They can be means of subversion, but most importantly, a means of celebration.’
I grew up in the punk/post punk era. Makeup had always been a friend and a source of creativity!