June 14, 2006--Le No Makeup
I’m back in Europe again. I’m getting nice and relaxed—mucho vino helps with that—and since it’s summer and the French have to wait yet six more weeks for their vacances, I thought I’d leave them alone. But then I came across an article in the NY Times that set me off (it’s linked below).
It’s about makeup, yes makeup. I know you’re saying “Relax, you’re on vacation, they aren’t. So just calm down. Don’t get your pants in a bunch about, of all things, cosmetics.” I ask, though, for a little indulgence, to make my case, and then let’s see if you still will be urging me to be cool.
The piece starts off benignly enough—it seems that French women don’t wear makeup. Or at least they apply it in a manner so as to make it appear that they aren’t wearing any. Sounds good. I think it’s working. Don’t you agree that French women look great?
But in the very next sentence, Laura Mercier, the French creator of a line of cosmetics is quoted as saying, “It really astonishes me the way American women wear so much makeup. Even teenage girls are overly made-up.” She could have stopped right there—no foul, no offense, but she can’t resist and continues, “And when you’re overly made-up, you send out the message that you are overly sexual, that you want to attract men.”
I am far from an authority on the history of cosmetics—why women from prehistoric times have adorned and painted themselves. I assume, no, to attract men. Darwin, help me here?
It gets worse—OK, even most Americans think Paris Hilton is “too much,” and Britney Spears is everyone’s favorite Schadenfreudian personality—sorry I missed her weepy appearance with Matt Lauer. (You see even I can’t resist making fun of her.) But come on, the French the Times reports, give Madonna a pass because she is viewed as “a hardnosed businesswoman”? And Jennifer Lopez “doesn’t count” because she is Hispanic? Give me a break--she was born in the Bronx!
No wonder all those Islamic-French, excuse-moi, those French, are rioting in the streets. Of course I am transgressing here by creating this hyphenated Islamic-French identity. No such concept exists in France. So drop the “Islamic” part since the French have a fiction that everyone who is a citoyen is just French—those from Gabon as well as those whose families have been in France since Charlemagne. Sure.
But to be fair, the French also have it in for Catherine Deneuve. She is mocked because ff her descent into “facial intervention” (i.e. plastic surgery) and painted face. “Poor Catherine,” moans Terry de Gunzburg, also the creator of a line of cosmetics, “She let herself get hooked by the syndrome of Dorian Gray, of eternal youth. It’s sad.
Speaking of sad, I need to do a little research about “name intervention”—Terry de Gunzburg, indeed. Not in my neighborhood.
On the other hand, “Vino mas, por favor.”
It’s about makeup, yes makeup. I know you’re saying “Relax, you’re on vacation, they aren’t. So just calm down. Don’t get your pants in a bunch about, of all things, cosmetics.” I ask, though, for a little indulgence, to make my case, and then let’s see if you still will be urging me to be cool.
The piece starts off benignly enough—it seems that French women don’t wear makeup. Or at least they apply it in a manner so as to make it appear that they aren’t wearing any. Sounds good. I think it’s working. Don’t you agree that French women look great?
But in the very next sentence, Laura Mercier, the French creator of a line of cosmetics is quoted as saying, “It really astonishes me the way American women wear so much makeup. Even teenage girls are overly made-up.” She could have stopped right there—no foul, no offense, but she can’t resist and continues, “And when you’re overly made-up, you send out the message that you are overly sexual, that you want to attract men.”
I am far from an authority on the history of cosmetics—why women from prehistoric times have adorned and painted themselves. I assume, no, to attract men. Darwin, help me here?
It gets worse—OK, even most Americans think Paris Hilton is “too much,” and Britney Spears is everyone’s favorite Schadenfreudian personality—sorry I missed her weepy appearance with Matt Lauer. (You see even I can’t resist making fun of her.) But come on, the French the Times reports, give Madonna a pass because she is viewed as “a hardnosed businesswoman”? And Jennifer Lopez “doesn’t count” because she is Hispanic? Give me a break--she was born in the Bronx!
No wonder all those Islamic-French, excuse-moi, those French, are rioting in the streets. Of course I am transgressing here by creating this hyphenated Islamic-French identity. No such concept exists in France. So drop the “Islamic” part since the French have a fiction that everyone who is a citoyen is just French—those from Gabon as well as those whose families have been in France since Charlemagne. Sure.
But to be fair, the French also have it in for Catherine Deneuve. She is mocked because ff her descent into “facial intervention” (i.e. plastic surgery) and painted face. “Poor Catherine,” moans Terry de Gunzburg, also the creator of a line of cosmetics, “She let herself get hooked by the syndrome of Dorian Gray, of eternal youth. It’s sad.
Speaking of sad, I need to do a little research about “name intervention”—Terry de Gunzburg, indeed. Not in my neighborhood.
On the other hand, “Vino mas, por favor.”
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:45 AM
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