Calligraphilia

Okay, so bear with me here.

This post is largely me poking at something I noticed in re-watching some beloved source material.

Exhibit A:

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Cameron: But she’s not life, she’s just a body, bones and meat. [Sarah glares at her] Was that bad to say?

Exhibit B:

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John Watson: You said that the victims all took the poison themselves…that he makes them take it. Well, maybe he, I dunno, talks to them…Maybe he used the death of her daughter somehow?
Sherlock Holmes: That was ages ago, why would she still be upset? [The room falls silent. Beat.] Not good?
John Watson: Bit not good, yeah.

Exhibit C:

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Sherlock Holmes: People have died.
Jim Moriarty: That’s what people do!

Cameron and Sherlock’s arcs are in some ways similar: Cameron spends the two seasons (*sob*) of The Sarah Connor Chronicles as a machine cybernetic organism learning to be human; Sherlock spends the two episodes of season one (I do not admit the existence of “The Blind Banker” for reasons of stomach-turning racism) as a (self-diagnosed?) high-functioning sociopath learning to be, in Lestrade’s words, a good man.

Both of them have examples of what they will be if they don’t learn in front of them: Cameron in her own behavior when her chip is damaged & in every other Terminator who’s hunting the Connors; Sherlock in Moriarty, the consulting criminal.

For writers, a quick way of demonstrating that a character is “wrong,” is “not like us,” is to have him or her display ignorance that the human body is more than the physical object, that has meaning and power in more than its physical shape. The characters who are redeemable have to have someone teach them that this is unacceptable, and they have to acknowledge that they are being educated (even if it is in the hostile model of Sarah Connor’s education); if/when a character rejects this education, they become even more othered. Less human.

This isn’t anything like a complete theory of character, to be sure. There are a lot of ways of doing this, and I’m sure there are counter-examples of the body being stripped of its metaphysical meaning and power. But I think there’s something there.

Somebody’s going to make the advert campaign for Amelia Pond’s fragrance, right? Right?

Picking the Perfect Tuxedo, A Rant

pedanticbamblings:

This was inspired when I overheard a girl talking about how hard it was for women during the Academy Awards. If they wore the wrong dress, they’d never hear the end of it. Guys had it easy, “all they have to do is slip on a tux.”

“Slip on a tux?” Really? When was the last time you went through that process? I’m assuming you wore a dress to prom, and not a tuxedo. And I’m assuming you believe all tuxedos are created equal. HAH!

Let’s go through the process of picking out a tux, shall we?

• Cut: What kind of tux are we talking about? Tailcoat? Or a suit? How tailored is it? How long is the jacket? What kind of lapel? Back collar? How many buttons does it have? Etc.
• Color: Are we going with basic black? Charcoal could be nice… Navy? Pinstripes are in, aren’t they? What if we did chalk-stripes instead? White? Etc.
• Shirt: What kind of shirt? Tuxedo shirt? Plain front? What does the collar look like? What color is it? Black? Charcoal? White? Ok, what shade? Ivory? Cream? Eggshell? Off? Etc.
• Tie: Necktie? Ascot? Bolo? (Nah, maybe if you’re Willie Nelson…) Bow tie? Ok, now color? Classy black? Red? White? How thick are we talking about? Can you even tie a bow tie? Etc.
• Cummerbund or vest? Or neither? Ok… Cut? Color? Etc.
• Belt: Black? Silver buckle? Or gold? Or do your pants have belt loops? Suspenders then. Color? Etc.
• Shoes: What does the toe look like? Pointed toe? Or rounded? Or square? Loafers? Laces? Etc.
• Accessories: Watch? Eyewear or contacts? Pocket square? Etc.
• Facial Hair: Clean shaven? Hipster mustache? Goatee? Full on lumberjack beard (á la Christian Bale)? Etc.
• Hair: Cut? Shaggy? Am I going bald?!?! Etc.

You see where this is going… One does not simply walk into a shop and say “I would like that tuxedo, please.” (I mean, that’s how it starts, but too many variables end up under one’s control.)

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I’m not really sure how to respond to this — my first instinct is to go for the various “poor baby, no one understaaaaands how hard it is to be a cis male!” jokes. (Seriously, dude, get off the cross, we need the wood.) On the other hand, it’s an interesting question in gender performance: formalwear is one of the many places in the wealthy West where gender is very (very very) binary.

As a woman? Hell yes, I do think that men’s formalwear is easier than women’s, and I say this as a woman who prefers to adopt the tux rather than gowns for black-tie events.  (Partially for pretentious political reasons, and partially for personal-comfort reasons; I’m totally fine with having two X chromosomes and the various bodily accoutrements that go with, but I live in jeans most of the time, and dressing up in a gown feels like the weirdest sort of drag.)

I will concede without a fight the point that not all tuxedos are created equal. (As someone who had to get the various components of her tuxedo tailored all to hell and back, if not custom-sewn from scratch, I can attest to the many levels of quality in what’s on the market.)

However, let me run you through a partial list of what women have to consider when they decide to go with a gown (I’m even going to be nice and ignore the skirt-and-top possibility!) rather than stealing from the guys.  I’m sure there are things I’m forgetting here, because I’m a cis, white, thin woman.

1. Do you want to show off an asset — breasts, waist, leg length, ass, &c.— or dress to hide what you don’t like (generally a much longer list, thanks to the toxic public atmosphere in which women’s bodies are constantly criticized and re-shaped)?  If so, which?  You can’t show off both the rack and the legs, that just looks slutty. (Sarcasm quotient of the preceding sentence: 105%.)
2. If you want to show off an asset, how much is too much?  You want to show off your hourglass figure?  Cool — just don’t overdo it, sweetheart, no one wants to see that much of the girls.  You want to strut your legs, with their bike-riding-mountain-hiking-I-worked-hard-for-these calves? You go ahead and do that, just make sure you’re shaved and tanned and possibly be-makeuped (pantyhose is so matronly), and definitely don’t show us more than we want to see.  (You will, of course, know how much we want to see.  By magic telepathy, or something.)
3. Your underwear — sorry, lingerie — is important. Can’t see it, of course, but if you don’t wear the right panties, bra, spanx, WE WILL ALL KNOW and you will be shamed. Shaaaaaaamed, I say.
4. Silhouette: nipped, tucked, darted, slit-leg, fishtail, mermaid, backless, ruffles?
5. Subset of silhouette: neckline! portrait, v-neck, scoop, jewel, bateau, asymmetrical, high, sweetheart, strapless, one-shoulder, square, column, halter, and I’m running out of breath.
6. Let’s say you’re me, and have a pretty damn good body image (thank you feminism, and especially thank you Our Bodies, Ourselves), without the weird gender issues I have managed to acquire.  Let’s say you think you are, in fact, all that, and don’t have any single flaunt-or-hide imperative.  Still, there’s the question of length.  Despite Emily Post, cocktail- (by which I mean knee-) length dresses are generally acceptable, if unusual, at black-tie now, so you’ve got the over-the-knee or below-the-knee question, and when you get longer than that, tea-length and floor-length and what about a train?  The hemline can be ragged or asymmetrical or short in front while long in back, don’t forget.
7. Material!  Silk? Satin? Velvet? Crepe? Tulle? Chiffon? Lace?  Alas, we are not in mid-eighteenth-century France, when cotton was the new sexy exotic fabric. D:  And is it going to be beaded? Or embroidered?
8. Color: pastel versus jewel tones versus neutrals is only the start, my friend.  Warm or cool? Can you pull off a pattern or a print — and there’s always ombre! — or is it best to stick to a solid?  If the latter, are you the kind of woman who can pull off, say, yellow or orange, which are generally seen as riskier choices, or are you going to stick to the slightly-daring-but-not-really green or blue family?  At this point, frankly, red is basically a neutral for black-tie events.  Some of us love metallics, some of us think the pale-pink family that we’ve started to refer to as “nude” is a neutral (hahaha do you see what I did there?), is white too bridal, the little black dress is a classic but aren’t we all bored of it yet, oh god I think I’m going blind.
9. Frankly, I was going to break this item up a lot more, but I’m getting tired.  Jewelry. People have entire blogs devoted to jewelry.  Jewels (without getting into the specifics of the many many stones available for decoration of the human body? let me just say that you could probably write an entire book about precious as opposed to semi-precious stones, and I fully expect that someone has) or plain metal, gold versus silver (and platinum, nowadays), how big should they be (Zoe Saldana’s 80-caret amethyst ring is a pretty extreme example, but necklaces and earrings have the size question as well), how many bracelets is it okay to wear?
10. Other accessories, oh my god just shoot me now. Purses! Coats (shawl-wrap-stole-everybody-remembers-Jennifer-Hudson’s-bolero-right?)!  (Red carpets are outside, remember, so that the plebs can see.)  Umbrellas! Watches! Hats and fascinators! Gloves! Belts! Sashes!
11. Shooooooooes.  People fetishize shoes more than I can comprehend or convey.  Do they match your purse? Do they match your dress? Do you want them to match your dress or your purse?  How matchy is too matchy?  What’s the heel height? Can you pull off flats? Strappy, beaded, ankle straps, platform (platform heel? this is different from a simple platform and definitely different from a straight-up heel), peeptoe, rounded toe, pointed toe, boots, booties, bow on the toe?
12. OH HAI THAR HAIR. Color! Cut! Length! Part (center, side, swept back)! Up! Down! Half-up! Plus, what do you put in it?
13. Maaaaakeup. Lips, eyes, cheeks, nails.  This deserves an entire blog post on its own, but I am not the person to write it.

(The astute reader will notice that I linked to Go Fug Yourself a lot in the above.  That would be because they’re one of the few people who discuss fashion and rarely stray over the line into what Jezebel calls bodysnarking; they actually talk about the clothes, and since this is a post about the Perils of Dressing While Female, the clothes are my point.)

There are literally, I am not exaggerating, a dozen other points I could’ve made, but I’m kind of appalled by how much I know about this topic when it isn’t even relevant to me.

Also, thanks to saezutte for reminding me about the issue of brand representation — a lot of times at the Oscars or equivalent (which was the impetus for this discussion), the red-carpet-walkers are expected to wear a designer’s clothes, especially if they’re attached to the brand as ambassadors of some stripe, and wear the hell out of it. If the dress wears them?  They are doing it wrong.  (Apparently Nicole Kidman was recently criticized for not “wearing a Dior dress as a Dior dress should be worn.”  If anyone can explain to me what the hell that *means*, I would be very grateful.)

And now I am going to get very, very drunk.