"Beauty Issue," part 1 of 1 million

Flipping through my roommate's Vogue from September 2007, I was wondering if the point of Vogue was for designers to simply put their best looks in advertisement form for 95% of the magazine and for Vogue to insert 10 articles or so and call it a wrap. And then I found an article.

And it reminded me that I have a document (which is how I keep diaries on certain issues) on my laptop called "Beauty Issue." In it, I keep various thoughts and quotes about beauty. Beauty confuses the crap out of me. It kind always has since puberty. That is why this post is part 1 of 1 million, because I doubt I will ever figure it out. But I wanted to post the article from Vogue anyway, because I think it has something to say about my generation of ladies and our struggle with beauty. Sorry for the typos, I had to type the thing out because I guess copyright people don't like for their articles to be posted on the internet for free. Well, this is just an excerpt:

Vogue Sept. 2007 “The Sloppy Syndrome: Is it a form of self-expression or an issue of self-esteem” by Jean Hanff Korelitz

“I decided to ask Julia Temple, a psychiatrist in Princeton, New Jersey, why so many reasonable women balk at the prospect of looking as if they’ve made some effort to look like grown-ups. ‘I see women who may not even realize they’re avoiding looking their best,’ she told me. ‘They feel they don’t deserve to look very good. Women who have been abused in childhood can be self-neglected in adulthood.’ When I explained that I had something less defensible in mind, she was familiar with that, too. ‘Avoiding the risk of getting hurt is very common. They look good enough, but if they stretch themselves it might not come off right.’

Sandra Cohen, a Manhattan therapist, stressed that the casual-style trend of our culture at large is as much the culprit as our wounded psyches. ‘Twenty years ago, you couldn’t just turn up in anything at an event. You never saw jeans at the Metropolitan Opera, and now you do.’ Then again, she argues, dressing down can have a converse socioeconomic message. Even if people from disadvantaged backgrounds can afford only one good outfit, they never hesitate to put it on when the occasion calls for it. Wealthy women, on the other hand, can afford – financially and psychologically – to dress as if spending money on clothes were simply a matter of preference. ‘You have to be secure to wear torn jeans on Fifth Avenue,’ says Cohen. ‘Someone who worries that people might wonder if she has money is not going to dress that way.’

…equates looking too ‘done’ with ‘looking like Nancy Reagan.’ But Staple insists on seeing the bright side of falling short. She may ask friends to cut her hair so it won’t constitute a legitimate coif, but it’s actually part of a covert self-empowerment scheme. ‘Looking a little “off”,’ she discloses, ‘makes me feel bratty and in charge.’

Here’s my version of an explanation (and an extension of Temple’s risk-avoidance take). Remember that scene in A Beautiful Mind when John Nash has his aha moment in a bar and the seeds of game theory are sown? The scenario he uses to illustrate his idea involves a gorgeous blonde and her less lovely friends who enter a room full of attentive men. The men approach the friends but not the blonde, leaving her miffed as they swing their new dates onto the dance floor. Why haven’t they tried for the ultimate prize? Because they fear they’ll fail. If they aim lower, on the other hand, not only will success be easier to come by but no one will ever know that they’ve settled.

Those flip-flops, in other words, may mean: Do I look like I care that much? But the truth is, I do care."

Ok - one thing about the A Beautiful Mind story - I think it's fascinating and true. And this phenomenon of 'shooting low' is a very postmodern one, I think. One thing that struck me at the L'Abri conference was when Hans Bayer was giving his talk about the spiritual needs of contemporary culture, he said that the current generation has nothing that they would die for. And why should they? You can excuse everything away today, literally. Everything is kind of relative and extremism is looked down upon. To say it in a different way, I think someone of my generation would look at the story in A Beautiful Mind and say 'what? what's wrong with going for the friends? are you saying that beauty is only on the outside? maybe in their culture they like girls who are a little more mousey, who are you to judge that?' But that's not the point of the story, the guys went for second best, because they all knew what was best and didn't go for it.

I have to think a lot more about all of this.

OH! One more thing: maybe this really does all relate to postmodernism! In postmodern architecture, instead of really striving for 'beauty' in the classical sense, postmodern architects try to bring out the playfulness of their art, by mixing different elements and eras - pastiche. While the result isn't exactly beautiful, it is charming and approachable. Which would you prefer? Beauty or open-mindedness?