This week at Role/Reboot I wrote about my relationship with make-up. The inspiration for this piece was some combination of Caitlin Moran, Leighton Meester, Hillary Clinton, Toddlers in Tiaras, Sephora, and those annoying Latisse ads.
In How to Be a Woman, Moran wrote:
“I love drag and make-up and reinvention and wigs and make-believe and inventing yourself from the floor up, as many times as you need to. Every day, if you want. At the very end of all this arguing, women should be allowed to look how they damn well please. The patriarchy can get OFF my face and tits.”
Gah, she is just the best. And then, Gossip Girl actress Leighton Meester was recently quoted in Cosmo saying, “I don’t care if there are a million photos of me with no makeup. I love being able to walk down the street without it. We should promote women not having to wear makeup, or at least feel we can go out without it.”
I couldn’t agree with her more, but the language of her statement makes it clear that the default position is to be plastered in cosmetics, and that “being able” to go without it is somehow a bold statement. It seems to me that face-painting would be the unusual case, not our baseline for leaving the house, but I think I’m deluding myself (at least, for celebrities).
And then there’s Hillary, who is just the biggest BAMF around. Her quote, my favorite, is in my essay:
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