White supremacy in beauty and fashion

Re-post - via Jezebel

What does "Young Hollywood" look like? According to Vanity Fair, it's pretty, thin, female and white.

Amanda Seyfried, Anna Kendrick, Kristen Stewart, Carey Mulligan, Abbie Cornish, Rebecca Hall, Emma Stone, Mia Wasikowska, Evan Rachel Wood: There's not a single woman of color on the cover of Vanity Fair's "Young Hollywood" issue. Two of the ladies — Kristen Stewart and Amanda Seyfried — were already on the August 2008 "Hollywood's New Wave." issue. There were two women of color — Zoe Saldana, America Ferrara — on the cover of 2008's "Hollywood Issue," but apparently the next decade is not about diversity.

VF's "Young Hollywood" is much like the golden age of Hollywood: There was a fetishization of the lithe, gorgeous, virginal ingenue, whose virtues and ambitions were pure, and therefore desirable. You either wanted to be her or sleep with her. She was the photographed wearing white, and her "All-American" good looks meant that she was a WASP or a fresh-faced farmgirl. Certainly not black, definitely not fat, and never both. Looking at the March 2010 issue, has anything changed? Even Evgenia Peretz's descriptions of the actresses — "Ivory-soap-girl features," "patrician looks" "dewy, wide-eyed loveliness" — reinforce the idea that a successful actress is a pretty, aristocratic-looking (read: white) actress.

It's hard to say if fault lies with the editors of the magazine, or with Hollywood itself — trying to come up with some projects employing new, young Asian, black or Latin actors and actresses is a tough exercise. The few names which come to mind — Jaden Smith (The Pursuit Of Happiness, The Kung-Fu Kid), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire, Julian Schnabel's Miral, Woody Allen's next film), Gianna Jun (Blood: The Last Vampire, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) — are up-and-comers with just a few roles under their belts. The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie recently did a Q&A with VF.

Gabourey Sidibe — cover girl for the March issue of Ebony — is an obvious choice, though she admits in the accompanying interview:

"I don't try to live up to the standards of Hollywood or any of that – I know that I'm different and I celebrate it. In a weird way, I kind of really, really love being the alien in the room. I dig it."

And it's good that Gabby doesn't care about living up to Hollywood standards. Because judging from the VF cover, the "Hollywood" standards need to change.

Agency, Resistance and Space

My darling pal Maylee invited me to the tents at Toronto Fashion week! Three of us dressed up as crazy space Alien woman to help promote the installation we were doing for Evan Biddell's Fashion Show After party. We roamed around the posh tents and sat front row hob knobing with the pomposity that is TO's Fashion elite.

Although we were working for a problematic industry, I couldn't help but note how a trio of us space alien gals are capable of disrupting a homogeneous space filled with white skinny bodies. As we were roaming around 'networking,' I introduced myself as a raging feminist and got some pretty uncomfortable looks. Our alien Otherness was read by way of our race, and size - which two thirds of us were not 'skinny' and one third was not white. The exagerration of this Otherness was inherently an act of resistance that helped to facilitate agency over spaces where white skinny supremacy unfortunately dominates.

We got reactions like "good for you" or "oh wow you're so brave" or "what are you doing?" or just simply scornful and critical stares. It was clear, we looked pretty different in a space where race, class and gender afford you privilege, style and sex-appeal. Our Otherness was only made possible within a space that caters to the superior bodies that are propagated as the norm.
Our space Alien outfits and make-up allowed me to think about my body politics. specifically, i began to ponder how my privileges award me space and attention, while my performative Otherness restricts my space and mobility.

Inciting our own agency to create space for our mis-represented or hardly-ever represented bodies is so important in exclusive spaces where privileges create space and mobility. At Toronto Fashion Week my Otherness ( in elaborated costumes) was being performed as a subversive spectacle. Simply performing this Otherness allowed me to experience (albeit superficially ) advantages and disadvantages of my own privilege and how it affects my mobility and perception of space.

For shits and giggles I dare you to carve out your own space through disruption and resistance - go somewhere with a group of friends, dress up, perform, and interrupt the normative nature of supremacy whether it be the skinny elite, or heteronormative bars - you choose, but find that space, make a spectacle and embrace your Otherness while resisting those nasty ideologies and structures that compromise your agency and render you inferior!

ps maylees playing tomorrow at supermarket
MAYLEE & PEGWEE POWER at Supermarket (268 Augusta), Friday (November 13), $10, 416-840-0501; and at Wrongbar (1279 Queen West), Wednesday (November 18), $13.50, 416-516-8677.

the unlikely body...

... to grace magazine covers is my fav Gossip Front lady Beth Ditto. The visibility of large queer women is minute, so when fashion and music magazines have decided to use Beth i want to celebrate and applaud this! but i'd rather take it into my own hands and see her in my city, like every day!
And so in my brainstorming and idea forming i think what is happening with her fame is interesting and I would like to see more of her around.
and so i think we may take that task into our own hands very soon! stay tuned for posters.

real bodies wear gold spandex!

Just cause i needed a soundtrack while brainstorming on ways to turn tampons into word art...stay tuned.
xox

Leslie Hall

Inspiration!

Allyson Mitchell is awesome!!!!

I'm done with all the shame.

I’d like to talk about size. I’m not skinny nor have I ever been. I would not consider myself fat either. For one thing the term is fully loaded with shame, guilt and gluttony. Though there are many fat feminist mafia’s out there in defence of size, I have not, personally, been able to reclaim the term. I also do not think I am fat, because that always seems to imply being unhealthy, which I am not.

I’d like to talk about size because I am not the only one out there who does not see people of their shape and size represented in the media. I would like to talk about size because I am not the only one would like to be heard, seen and respected as a human being who is not a size 2. I would like to talk about size because I am not the only one would like to be heard, seen and respected as a sexual, happy, fulfilled human being and not someone filled with shame and self-loathing for enjoying a piece of cake.

These are deeply important issues to me, and many people in the world who have since the shattering of blissful childhood ignorance found the world to be difficult when you are above the “average” size. Simple things like finding clothes that fit, and make you feel comfortable and attractive in your own skin, are difficult when you are of a certain size. (Finding clothes was close to traumatic for me as an adolescent). Growing up as a larger person can be hellish, adolescents are not known for being particularly nice. Even after childhood teasing, there is harassment and discrimination within the workforce to face.

I would ideally like to represent women of size as being silenced, yet I would also like promote them as sexual beings. We deserve to be seen, heard, respected and represented. So, I hope that we can with our installations represent size and sexuality respectfully while accurately portraying the silence people face from not being represented in our society.

-babbitthica