“I was one of the first black women in the country, more years ago than I care to remember, who wore an afro ‘outside,’ in public. This was way before Star Trek. I wore one of the biggest afros in New York, but I wore it with Dior and Chanel suits. One of the other persons who was the first to wear an afro, but she cut it very short, was Cicely Tyson. But when it came time to do the Star Trek movie, I had to fight for that afro. It was nothing against the afro, but the feeling was that the afro had become so very popular that it looked too contemporary. I said, ‘However, the afro is not modern, the afro has been around for at least not less than 5,000 years and probably at least 10,000. I’m not sure how long we’ve been on the planet, but as long as there have been black people the afro has been around.’ Then they said, ‘Well, it can’t be the big bubble, so let’s try to get a more “Uhura’ style.” I said, ‘What are you going to do, deny her race and make her hair straight again? If we’re going to have to live through that again…’ They assured me that what they had in mind was more of a balance, and we agreed. We said, ‘OK, women in the future will do all kinds of things, as they have in the past. For 5,000 years and more they’ve straightened their hair and curled it and rolled it and twisted it and braided it and twirled it and shaved it off and done everything under the sun. And so, in the future, it’s very conceivable that, just as we do today, black people will do these twirly-curl kind of things, and point their bangs, and this would be peculiar to Uhura: the pointed bangs and long sideburns.’ […] To tell the truth, I really wanted cornrow braids. And don’t you dare call them ‘Bo Derek braids!’ That’s something that we’ve been doing for thousands of years before she was born!”
I love this so, so much. It really speaks to issues that black women in Hollywood and everyday life are still facing today around the shaming of natural hair that comes with the assumption that the beauty standard to appeal to is that of white women’s hair. And it touches on cultural appropriation of black hairstyles like cornrows by white people! Nichelle Nichols is so the most amazing.
it’s sort of funny that the current cultural idea of the flapper dates not from the 1920s, but the 1950s when costume designers took the radical, gender-fluid, sexual, sexually liberated ideas and fashions of the 20s and made them sexy. as in sexual objectifying.
because 1950s and fuck female agency.
If you would like, I would love to hear more about this. What, exactly, happened, and what was the true 1920s aesthetic, untainted by 50s views?
hokay. so it’s the 1950s and it’s the heyday of the studio system and writers and movie makers (and audiences) want rom coms and frolicking films and lighthearted fun, but there’s just one problem.
WWII
but that was the 1940s! you say
you’re right.
but in order to set a film in the 1950s, writers and film makers have to establish what the male lead character did during the war or risk it coming across like he didn’t, well, serve. can’t have a shirker or a coward and rejected for medical reasons really doesn’t fly in the 1950s. and there’s only so many times you can write about soldiers and sailors and airmen and the occasional spy before it starts to become stale. and it doesn’t terribly fit with the fluffy writing because, well, war and death and tens of millions of people dead. contemporary films more fall in the line of what we now call film noir. men and women who have been damaged by war, but that’s another topic.
sooooo, you do period pieces. no one wants to do the 1930s because that’s the great depression. so 1920s. frolicking and gay and fabulous!
(Great War, what Great War?)
but the thing is, the 1920s, especially in Paris and Berlin, were a massively transgressive, reversal, and experimental time period in art, fashion, society, and all over. but only a little bit in america because honestly we were barely touched by wwi so it’s not like we’re partying to forget an entire generation of young men killed off and entire towns wiped off the face of the earth using weapons the likes of which had never been seen before. the us as a whole mostly heard about sarin gas, not see it poison entire landscapes and men and animals dropped to the ground and die in truly horrific ways.
the europe that emerged from wwi was massively shell shocked, angry, and living in a surreal dream of everything being upwards and backwards and live now because tomorrow you may die and it’s all nonsense anyway. it’s a world in which surrealism and dadaism and german expressionism make sense because fuck it all.
you get repudiation of the old, experimentation, deliberate reversals, transgressive behavior, and if there’s an envelope to push, you tear it open. France calls the 1920s “Années folles”, the crazy years.
the things we’re doing now, with fluidity and experimentation and exploration of gender and sexuality and presentation? the 1920s did that already. it’s drag and androgyny and blatant homosexuality. it’s extramarital affairs and sex before or without marriage, it’s rejection of marriage as an idea and an institution, it’s playing with gender and gender roles and working women and unrestrained art and
it’s everything the 1950s hated. or more accurately: absolutely terrified of.
the flappers of the 1920s went to college and cut their hair to repudiate a century of a woman’s hair being her crowning glory. they wore obvious makeup and makeup in ways that are not terribly appealing now and weren’t terribly appealing then, but they signaled you were part of the tribe.
they were women who wanted independence and personal fulfillment.
“She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do.“
so the 1950s didn’t want that. they wanted films with dancing and chorus lines and pretty girls to be looked at. they wanted spaghetti straps and fringed dresses that moved pretty when the chorus girls danced.
1920s fringe doesn’t. 1920s fringe is made of silk, incredibly dense, incredibly heavy, sewn on individually by hand, and rather delicate. the all-over fringe dress didn’t exist until the 1950s invention of nylon and continuous loops that could be sewn on in costume workshops by the mile on machines.
(this is before “vintage” exists. to the 1950s, the 1920s (or earlier) wasn’t vintage, it was old-fashioned. démodé. out of style. last last last last last season.)
1950s 1920s-set movies have clothes that are the 1950s take on it. the dresses have a dropped waist, but they’re form-fitting, figure-revealing. the actresses are pretty clearly wearing bras and 50s girdles under them a lot of the time. they’re not
the woman on the far left is basically wearing a man’s suit with a skirt. la garçonne. some women went full-out and wore pants. you could be arrested for that. they were. still wore pants. and pyjama ensembles in silk and loud prints.
or class photo of ‘25
or even
not that 1920s dresses could be sexy or sexual; they often were. i’ve seen 20s dresses that were basically sideless and held together with straps. but it’s sort of like how the mini skirt went from being a thing of sexual liberation to an item of sexual objectification.
it’s ownership and it’s agency and it’s hard to put a name or finger on it, but you just know. sex goddess versus sex icon.
Mission: To get GILEAD Sciences (producers of PrEP) to release the patent on the only HIV prevention drug available in the U.S. and in turn dramatically lower the price of PrEP in the U.S.
What: ACT UP NY will be having two die-ins on the route of the AIDS Walk. Additional activists will hand out fliers sharing the information related to this specific issue at-hand.
When: SUNDAY, MAY 20, 9:30a.m.–11p.m.
Where: Meet at Cedar Hill and East Drive (south of the intersection of East Drive and E 79th)
Look for: ACT UP apparel, black balloons, white t-shirts, banners (we’ll make sure to be seen)
Why? GILEAD Sciences is one of the top sponsors of AIDS Walk. Although we are not protesting GMHC, or the AIDS Walk, we are here to tell the community to divest in GILEAD Sciences and to spread awareness of the issue.
Young girls really are pressured now more than ever to be seen as beautiful and sexy and perfect like IG models and whatever the fuck…..like that’s why you see “me at 14 vs 14 year old girls today” posts……….we didn’t have this constant stream of content like they do…..content telling us to be perfect and to have perfect clothes and sharp eyeliner wings that look photoshopped and shit like that….I mean it’s always been there but not like this…and while I think girls should be able to dress however they want and do whatever they want…..you have to take into consideration the fact that this all stems from a toxic culture where women have to be perfect and beautiful…now at younger and younger ages….and it’s really gross…and the media continues to sexualize and like…make young girls seem older and more appealing than they actually are idk the whole thing makes me so uncomfortable and it’s only going to get worse
And the wildest thing is, people will still try and justify it with the “there’s always been girls that dress older than they are!” argument. Which is true. But it was never the norm. Pre social media, most young girls were allowed be young girls. Here’s Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Lindsay Lohan at 14/15 in 2001-2007. They were arguably the biggest young stars of the time but this is how they presented
They aren’t being styled to look leagues older than they are. They’re allowed to just be their own age and look their own age. Now, here’s Millie Bobbie Brown at 13 in 2018, Veronika Bonell at 15/16 in 2017, Skai Jackson at 13 in 2015, and Caitlin Carmichael at 13 in 2017.
There is a deep problem in our society that this is what people are styling children to look like. They don’t look like children, they look like young adults. They could wear these exact same looks in 10 years and they wouldn’t be questioned because they’re dressed and made up to present as adults. This is what is presented as normal for young girls, this is the image they’re told is the “right” one, the one they should aspire to.
There’s nothing wrong with girls – or boys – wanting to be pretty. But there is a problem with young girls being constantly told that pretty for them means looking over 21 at 13.
Parineeti Chopra responds to a male reporter who claims to know nothing about periods (menstrual cycle). [X]
SO IMPORTANT.
I started my period when I was 10 years old. But we didn’t tell my grandma for three years because she subscribed to the “old traditions”, where a woman on her period could not enter the house, not even to bathe. Where she had to sit outside in front of the house (where the whole village could be witness to her shame and isolation) for the entire duration.
My friend started her period unexpectedly while we were at our local temple (in America) for dance class. Asking around if any of the parents had pads (all of them apologized and acted like adults about it), I thought surely the front office has a first aid kit. Don’t they have pads? When we asked, not only did they not have any, when one of the women gave one from her purse, the head secretary told us “There are men who need to use the first-aid kit, ya? So we don’t keep period things there.” Not even ibuprofen (which has so many more uses than period pain).
There are girls in India and Nepal (and other places, but I just read an in-depth piece about the situations in Nepal) who have to go to the “period hut” when their period comes and not leave until its over. They can’t wash and dry their cloth pads in the daylight, so they do it at night when the pads won’t dry properly before their next use, making them vulnerable to infection.
It is incredibly important, especially in India, to break the taboo surrounding periods. Break the secrecy around an event that happens to almost every woman, every month for literally half of her lifetime. Break the hiding, break the cover-up, break the SHAME.
Just break EVERYTHING. So little girls can go to school every day of every month without feeling ashamed. So women can work every day of every month to provide for their families without being glared at. So single fathers can confidently take care of their daughters’ health. So that women can talk about how terrible their period is or isn’t and give each other advice on how to deal with it without looking around to make sure men aren’t listening. So that Whisper doesn’t have to be called Whisper, it can be called SHOUT. It can be called PROUD. So that we don’t NEED to fucking WHISPER about our bodies and our health.
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