Men.

I should narrow this down shouldn't I? I know quite a few very lovely men whose ilk should be excluded from this particular little rant. Of course men can compliment a woman they know and respect without making her uncomfortable. It's he motivation and tone that makes it threatening and degrading. This doesn't apply to you if:

1) You never lurk around a woman in a club waiting for a good moment to rub yourself against her poor bum. You're not dancing with her, you're disgusting. (I once had a particularly vile man grab hold of my belt-loops so I couldn't escape from his 'dancing'.)

2) You never comment on the physical appearance of a woman you don't know, positively or negatively. (Some women like this, most don't.)

3) You would never touch a woman without her permission. (Eg. Arse-slapping in the street, gross leg rubbing on the Tube.)

4) You never pull a disgusting, leering face and look a woman up and down as you walk/drive past her. (I know everybody looks at attractive people in the street, but I'm talking about the men that do it so you'll notice they're doing it. The ones that want to make you feel inferior and grubby.)

5) You are polite, non-threatening and know when to give up when approaching a lovely lady in a bar.

There are probably other criteria (all suggestions welcome) but these are the ones that come to mind.

I'm motivated to write this post for two reasons: firstly because of a recent incident after which myself and a lovely friend managed to get our own back on one of these low-lives and secondly because the summer is here and it seems to draw more of them out of the woodwork.

In recent months, I have been dealing with cat-calling, physical advances and humiliation of this sort more and more regularly.
I'm not saying that I'm irresistible to men, I believe this phenomenon has more to do with humiliating any woman rather than just fabulously attractive women. It doesn't matter what you look like, if you're female you're fair game for humiliation and abuse. It seems that even in our supposedly equal society, women are still viewed by many men (and sometimes by themselves) as public property to be touched, spoken to, abused and degraded at their whim. I believe they get a kick out of the power of it; one word, look or action can make you feel disgusting and scared for the rest of the day. And they are never punished; we never get to reject them or hurt them because we're afraid to. The heat in the summer seems to affect them too, it makes them more rabid. Isn't it pathetic that they get fired up over bare arms and legs? They make it their excuse. "What a slut in her skirt. She's clearly up for having sex with me here and now. Look at that shoulder." It is just an excuse though, they think this kind of thing all the time. When you're snuggled up in a duffel coat and mittens they still think it. It seems to be a combination of vast, disgusting male ego ("All women want to have sex with me. If they don't, I can make them feel as grubby as if they had." ) And a belief that all women are 'sluts'.

Which brings me to the revenge I managed to exact a couple of weeks ago on a particularly stupid male individual. Walking home with my wonderful friend, we cut through the car park of Currys and Topps Tiles as usual. We heard somebody behind us and turned around to hear, "I love the way those jeans fit you baby" and various other vile sentiments. Except the idiot was wearing a Topps Tiles uniform. Outside the Topps Tiles shop. Wonderful friend and I decided that we'd had enough. Over the last month or so, both of us had had nasty experiences walking home and on public transport; we weren't going to let this one go. We went into the shop to complain about their employee to the manager who was quite good about it and said he would be officially reprimanded. On the way out, the idiot employee was still saying things to us, eventually shouting, "Ah, you're shy!"

No, I'm not shy Mr. Tiles, I just hate you and hope that you get fired.

Vanity Fair Portraits review

I said that sometimes I'd post things that I liked didn't I? I loved the Vanity Fair Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Here's why:

Vanity Fair Portraits at The National Portrait Gallery is truly an exhibition of two halves. Founded in 1913, the magazine ran until 1936 when it suffered the effects of the Great Depression and was absorbed into fellow Conde Nast publication, Vogue. It is clear from this impressive exhibition that, since its comeback in 1983, it has become a very different magazine.

The portraits from 1913 to 1936 reflect the burgeoning artistic movements of the time. These include modernism (with portraits of writers James Joyce and Virginia Woolf), Jazz (portraits of Fred and Adele Astaire), Art Deco (Noel Coward exactly as you want to see him, dapper and smoking) and the avant garde (Man Ray’s portrait of dancer and choreographer Bronislava Nijinska with a mask of make-up so terrifying that it defies description.)

It is clear that the intention of the magazine at this time was to provide challenging, modern content that engaged with high-culture as well as the world of entertainment. Throughout this era of Vanity Fair, there are examples of these great modern artists and thinkers in collaboration. Cecil Beaton’s portrait of Jean Cocteau features line sketches of the photographer and the sitter that they drew of each other during the sitting. And then there is Man Ray’s noble portrait of Picasso; in profile the artist looks like a roman bust. Vanity Fair photographers were obviously committed to challenging established ideas about photography and their subjects. A good example of this from the exhibition is the beautifully melancholic portrait of Charlie Chaplin, then the most famous man in the world. Best known for his riotous physical comedy, this portrait shows a different facet of his personality; the introspective thinker.

Strong, intellectual women are well represented here. Well, better represented than you’d expect from the publication and the time anyway. There are numerous portraits of Virginia Woolf by Maurice Beck and Helen MacGregor, and a wonderful portrait of actress, writer and suffragist Rebecca West. Of the female sitters, several haven’t just been ‘beautified.’ Greta Garbot (by Edward Steichen) isn’t portrayed as the glamorous movie star, but as the private, pensive woman she seemed to be in reality. The aforementioned portrait of Nijinska is the opposite of an exercise in beautification. With her gruesome mask, Nijinska becomes a canvas for Man Ray’s horrifying vision. There aren’t just female subjects in this half of the exhibition, there are more women photographers than you’d expect to see which seems to be part of the magazine’s modern approach.

Suddenly you round a corner and have to say an abrupt farewell to propriety and sepia which is replaced by the glowing skin and teeth of the 1980s. Obviously the magazine has had to keep up with modern trends and interests. From this we can deduce that nobody is interested in literature and art any more, they are too busy tanning, removing clothing, and straddling things to worry about all that fusty stuff. For many people (myself included) this was what they came to see; celebrities in beautiful clothes and in the nude.

However, despite the fact that the content of the magazine is clearly less ‘high-brow’ these days, there was still plenty to see that was of genuine interest. Much of this was due to the clever way in which the exhibition was laid out, subtly conveying messages about the portraits and the subjects. The most striking example of this is the portrait of the American War Cabinet (starring George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice) and below it, another of Rupert Murdoch looking windswept in a yacht. It is hard to not to construe that the curators were making a link between the power held by the President of the United States of America and the power held by a man who owns newspapers and magazines around the world. Opposite this wall is a very large portrait of Margaret Thatcher. This is a wonderfully simple face-on shot of the ‘Iron Lady’ and we can assume that the lack of life and vivacity in the portrait is a reflection on the woman herself rather than the photographer. Another deceptively simple portrait is that of socialite, Claus Von Bulow. This photograph of him dressed in black leather was taken whilst his wife lay in a coma. Bulow had recently been charged with her attempted murder. There are also nods to the magazine’s more high-brow past, with portraits of the writers Martin Amis and Seamus Heaney and the artist David Hockney. Hockney is shown bare-chested, pale and bespectacled beside a pool in which a beautiful Adonis plays water polo.

Hollywood glamour is what we have come to expect from Vanity Fair since the 1980s. Most of these Hollywood portraits are attributed to Annie Leibovitz, the celebrated celebrity photographer who has worked closely with both Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. The annual Hollywood Issue (several of which are exhibited here) features a three-page fold-out cover showcasing the most fabulous actresses in fabulous outfits. Annie Leibovitz’s portrait of Jack Nicholson is as Hollywood as it gets. Nicholson is photographed playing golf on Mulholland Drive in a dressing-gown with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. In addition to this, there are all the famous Vanity Fair photographs you would expect and want to see, from the Cruise family portrait to the beautiful and poignant portrait of Princess Diana by Mario Testino. The curators know that sex sells so we are treated to a naked Gisele straddling a white horse and Kiera Knightley and Scarlett Johansson posing in the nude on a sea of velvet.

This extensive exhibition is a tribute to a magazine that has pushed the boundaries of photography throughout its history. It hasn’t shied away from controversy and from presenting uncomfortable images (the September 11^th cover story ‘One Week in September’) as well as the glamorous images of celebrities for which it is best known. Both halves of this exhibition are equally interesting. These portraits reflect changing attitudes to celebrity and authority as well as changes in photographic technology and technique. This social dimension makes the exhibition a must-see even for people who have never picked up the glossy magazine.

(Review for the London Student.)

Foppery

If there's one thing that I hate more than anything in the world (well, currently anyway), it's pseudo-bohemia. It bothers me in several ways:

1) The people who indulge in this kind of idiocy are generally the dullest people you will ever meet.
2) They think they're better than you because you don't indulge them or have a predilection for smoking jackets/cigars/drugs/Wilde/basements/absinthe.
3) They tend to dress very badly indeed. Boys: please do not (ever) wear braces/cummerbunds/bow-ties/ill-fitting (in a bad way) shirts unless a formal occasion requires them. Faded glamour is just that. Faded and over.
4) They tend to talk loudly and say ridiculous things like, 'I think I had even done DRUGS!' Wow, we're all so very impressed.
5) Sexual deviancy is not deviant if you tell everybody about it, it's just a bit sad and tacky.

And there's more.

My main problem with all this rather silly behaviour is that it seems to be geared towards making other people believe that they are intellectuals. As far as I'm concerned, foppery does not an intellectual make. It's time for these Wilde-wannabes to realise that what they are doing is certainly not individual; they seem to run in self-congratulatory packs.

What I'm trying to say is, fellow Eeyores, that you shouldn't feel intimidated by this pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-bohemian bullshit. If they had an ounce of real intellectual integrity, they would be doing something new and different instead of just trying to shout louder, shag more people, talk about more drugs and wear more inappropriately formal garments than everybody else.

The time for quiet introspection is nigh, out with the fops!

Luke Janklow in Vogue

My life is a spiritual void into which Vogue breathes life each month. (Or something like that.) Beautiful clothes, beautiful models, intelligent interviews with cultural icons and excellent writing; I'm always full inspiration after guzzling it up. However, this month it let me down. Luke Janklow's article, 'Food of love?' left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.


The argument of said article can be reduced to: 'Men have a very visceral reaction to music' where 'Women respond to the melody, the story, the beauty'. What Janklow is really saying here when you scratch the surface is, 'men experience music in a deeper, more important way than women.' They experience it physically, primitively where women experience it at the obvious surface level of pretty tunes and sad lyrics. I hope I'm not alone in taking umbrage at this assumption (which seems to be based purely on the different musical tastes held by him and his wife.) I also hope I'm not alone (as a woman) in my love of shouty, stompy, raw music. I really don't think that I am.

My favourite thing to do when alone is to stomp, stomp, stomp to my favourite songs and believe me, there's nothing beautiful about it when I get going. The soundtrack for this apparently male behaviour is usually growly, shouty, filthy and frankly ugly. Garage rock, Riot Grrrl and anything else dirty and loud always provokes a physical reaction from me especially when I'm getting dressed. At these moments when I'm in a partial state of undress (personal favourite: tights/vest/mega-heels combo) I'm not thinking about the beautiful story that the lyrics are telling as Mr. Janklow would assume. I'm not really thinking much of anything to be honest. I'm just stomping. (Although sometimes it occurs to me about how gosh-darn sexy I look doing it.) And it doesn't just happen in my room either, I flail about in clubs and get goose-bumps at gigs and I don't have any control over any of it. I know I'm not alone in this. I see women throwing themselves about on dance floors with abandon whenever I go out. They're not thinking, 'These lyrics are so moving. And the melody? So beautiful!' They're thinking '??#!!£@??!' All of these women are experiencing music in the visceral way that Janklow attributes to men.

I just don't understand how this article slipped through the editorial net with it's outdated, easy assumptions about gender. How can somebody write and believe such nonsense in 2008 when we're confronted with images of gender subversion on a daily basis? It's probably more comfortable to think that we fit into neat little gender labelled boxes. More comfortable for somebody who's frightened to think that perhaps women aren't ethereal beings, devoid of physicality and who's too scared to confront the fact that he wants to wear his wife's knickers to work.

(For legal reasons, I have no proof that Mr. Janklow wants to wear his wife's knickers to work.)

Growing up.

I hate growing up.

I know that everybody hates growing up, but you must indulge me for a minute or so. I've been thinking about growing up a lot lately as I come to the end of my second year of a three-year degree. In an Arts subject. I have a lot of decisions to make next year and it's time to be honest with myself.

My love affair with London began at an early age. Once I had moved here I knew that I'd never, ever want to leave. I decided that I would stay in London after I finished my degree and become a writer. It's a lovely idea, but what are the chances? The reality is that most people with an English degree and aspirations of the journalistic or literary variety will end up working in marketing, PR or a bookshop. Growing up means having to be realistic; can I really pay rent, buy food, go out, and just survive in London with no money? With just my notebook and pen? The answer is no, absolutely not. Other questions: Do I really want to make tea, send emails, bitch by water-coolers, work a till and wonder how all this relates to my degree, just to earn a crust? A thousand times no. Do I want to have enough money for Christian Louboutin shoes one day? Yes! Yes!

Weighing all of this up, I did the ultimate grown-up thing. I decided on a compromise: teaching. My parents are teachers, I'm an English student, I love books, I love packed lunches; becoming a teacher was inevitable. Becoming a teacher is definately something that an adult would do. It's financially secure, there's a lot of paperwork, you're better than children and it's 'worthwhile'. Don't get me wrong, there's no way I could ever be persuaded to teach anybody under the age of 11 or anything other than English. And I'll have to save up for the Louboutins. But this way I can afford to stay in the city I love, (eventually) own fabulous shoes and in the long holidays, I can pretend to be a writer and wipe the dust from my notebook and pen.

Teachers can wear stilettos can't they?

(edit: I found my ambition again, no more PGCE for me. What was I thinking?!)

An Introduction to Drivel.

So I've got myself a grown-up version of Livejournal, good for me.

I dislike A LOT of things. If you read Drivel, you'll begin to understand the extent of my vitriol. It's not really my fault though; if things weren't so boring and rubbish, I wouldn't have to hate them. It's not indiscriminate hatred, it's only directed towards that which, in my view, deserves scorn.

The main categories of things that I dislike are as follows:

1) Mind-numbing lad-pub rock. (Artic Monkeys and their ilk.)
2) The publications that champion the above. (NME.)
3) Overly successful for apparently no reason children. (Theo.)
4) Student nights. (Club Sandwich.)
5) Stupid fashion trends. (Where to start?)
6) Fruit and vegetables and anything that comes in a sauce. (Except cheese sauce. Not a real category I know.)
7) Post-Feminism. (VICE, American Apparel.)
8) Music snobbery. (Uffie may be crap but she's not 'The worst thing to happen to music in the last ten years.')
9) Right wing politics. (I'm not a Marxist but how can you be a genuinely good person if you vote Tory?)
10) Everything else boring, pretentious (in a bad way), ugly (not people), trite, unfair, sexist, racist and generally terrible.

I'll try to include things that I like and enjoy too. If there's room.