Maid Marian: A Wench for the 21st Century

This is the only one of my bloggies that I don't have a lot of reserve material for (I keep a file for my blog writing so that I can post regularly, on somewhat regular days.) I don't think it's because I don't think about these issues--the Oh You Society Nautiness! issues--but because they're so seamlessly part of my everyday thoughts. They're hard to isolate.

This week I thought about Maid Marian (Lucy Griffiths, seen below with Robin) from the BBC Robin Hood series.
Only an RB viewer (and I don't know any) would know why I have Maid Marian On the Mind.

Anyway. Marian's an action, beat-em-up heroine, which is cool though it's becoming more and more of a TV norm (yay!) But also cool is that she's not uber skinny. This isn't so rare for Brit TV, but by American standards she stands out.

Some peeps on a chat group thought she looked thinner in season 2, but speculated it was because she learned martial arts for all her action scenes. (She does a kind of kung fu invented by a woman.) Her outfits are also girlier, but that was her idea.

There's another cool chick on the show--the Saracen Djaq. She also went from looking like a boy (on purpose) to looking more chicky. But it worked with the plot. Overall, a good show as far at Chickitude goes.

O Fashion Industry... why do you have to suck so bad?

I'm re-reading Thoreau's Walden at the moment, and there's a funny bit about clothes:

"No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. ...I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. ... I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched."

It's funny (non-haha) in that it applies more today than when he wrote it: "not that mankind be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched."

Unquestionable indeed. In our day the garment industry is one of the worst offenders as far as Planned Obsolescence is concerned. Clothes become obsolete not only because they are worn out, but more usually because they are no longer in style. And style has little to do with personal taste and personal expression--it is dictated to us. How we can find one kind of pant-leg unspeakably ugly in one decade, and then cute and retro in the next, and then find it back in, is a bit mind blowing. How is it that our actual taste changes? (Right now it's those humongous sunglasses from the 60s to early 80s, which in the Sleek 90s we thought were insane.)

It's not that I dislike fashion and clothes and all that. But if you take an honest--a really really really honest--look at the fashion industry... sigh... I don't know whether to go on and on, as I could. But think about a few things: (1) it's largely women who are being manipulated (is that too strong a word?) ; (2) think about the pressure on teenagers and women to look in fashion, whether they can afford it or not; (3) the garment industry is notorious for mistreating workers, and not only in foreign countries (and those workers are mostly women); (4) and all of this for something which is not a necessity, once you've got the basics.

Thoreau is making a bigger point, though--he's afraid that people spend more time worrying about how they look than they do worrying about having a "sound conscience." I suppose the pinko ;-) argument today would go further and say that our massive consumption of luxury products is a way of circumventing our consciences altogether, and keeping us from thinking about the injustices that allow us to live this way.

I'll give Oscar Wilde the last word, since no one can say he wasn't concerned with beauty and aesthetics:

"Fashion is a form of ugliness
so intolerable that we have to
alter it every six months."

Dressing Right

When watching old films, part of me thinks: Ahhh imagine everyone walking around looking swanky all the time. I was looking through my grandfather's old school year books, and it's just like that. All these men at university, in their ties and hats.


But then I think... how much would I hate getting on my skirt and stockings and high heels and hat and lipstick when I've been up all night studying for an exam? Shiver.

Then I was watching a Thin Man movie, and there's one scene where Nick and Nora Charles are in bed, exhausted cause they've been up all night, but they suddenly have to go out hunting for clues again. So Nick has to put his whole suit back on--trousers, jacket, shirt, cufflinks, tie, hat etc., and Nora once again dons her dress and I assume stockings, her high heels, her hat, etc.

Who wouldn't rather throw on jeans and a t-shirt?

So while the swank was lovely, it's gone for a good reason. Still, it's hard not to want more excuses to dress up. A woman I know said that when she was a music student they would all dress up to go to the opera. And the one thing I used to like about the church I used to go to was the Dressing Up expectation--putting on some cool new dress I'd bought, and all the men were in suits. Of course, nowadays suits are all associated with work.

Instead of dress-down Fridays, I propose that we let everyone go to work in sensible, comfortable clothes. And then every Friday we all dress to the nines, and then go out for cocktails and dancing after work! Weee!

O Fashion! You fickle dictator.

The clothing industry is a frustrating one. While I love clothes and fashion, the whole industry is absolutely built on imaginary obsolescence. That is to say, we don't only get rid of clothes because they've worn out, but because they're no longer in fashion.

Since I'm reading Thoreau right now, I'll let him speak to the topic:

"I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. ...As far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched."

Pretty Girls Have it Rough in MTV Land

I was watching America's Best Dance Crew 2 last week. One of the judges is this old NSync-ee dude, JC Chasez. I like him and all the judges, but he said something a little odd...

There was an all-chick crew performing, and he said something like: The world doesn't like to see pretty girls succeed.

?

Hmm. And yet the women you see dancing in videos and as concert backup dancers are generally, well, pretty. How do they all manage to rise above the prejudice against them??