Friday, January 15, 2021

melon & orange navel gazing

VOGUE copyright Conde Nast
© 2021 h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com
© 2021 KM Fikes

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from KM Fikes is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to KM Fikes & h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  No excerpt or link may be used for monetary compensation.

VOGUE copyright Tyler Mitchell
intersectional absurdist captioning - credit KM Fikes



With respect to the dear reader's time, please begin with the 2013 link above - proceeding the BLM summer of 2020.  All shall be revealed.

Thy generosity proves restorative, gentlesoulfolk.  One required said pause prior to quillin'.  Perhaps only the late novelist extraordinaire, Toni Morrison, was more averse to penning missives on white gaze.  One abandons the inherent institutional inclination in order to establish one's autonomy as artist, thinker, and basic sentient being.  Committed to the self-caring of 'centering', one gleans Morrison's echo in response to Ellison's title:

"Invisible to whom?" 

What a nod to the economic existential 'Trickle-Up' Theory at work when protestors - to the soundtrack of COVID ambulance sirens - took to the streets.  To underscore "Matter".  Their call to non-arms after George Floyd's viral lynching caused the highest echelons of cooperate entities to examine repazentashun.  Sum mused in open letters whilst others scrambled for the appearance of enlightenment.  Consequently, sum implemented change befo' enuf insular investigation.  

Letterpressed deep into the finest surface, engraved in solid gold, or calligraphied in a flourish as lavish as the dexterous hand may, an 'OUTTA ORDER' sign shalt neva express anything otha than faulty plumbing in need of fix.  There, upon the bathroom stall - where we take breaks from awareness - such signage, unread, can cause embarrassment.  Like editorial deliberation for the choice of cover photo shooting at the-of-the epitomes fashion publication.

Again, one has grappled long with eschewing the angles of white gaze - in not only practice but discussion.  Instead, one chooses to indict how its errors fail 'us' less than itself, sacrificing the potency of priv.  Kamala Harris is the Vice President-elect.  To be defined on her terms.  As a woman of both Caribbean and South Asian descent.  Phew on the firsts!

Granted, some of the blame is too many cooks in the kitchen - with too much to prove yet no consensus so concise within Food Network's mystery basket.  The result is a recipe for disaster with toxic brew exemplified.  Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' own team was present, picking wardrobe of her choice - as should have been.  Da final selection, reportedly, disregarded Harris' preference:

VOGUE copyright Tyler Mitchell

The same young black photographer who broke barriers with Beyoncé was at the helm.  So were others.  Present n' accounted for was the excruciating task of making a 'cover girl' from a grown-arse woman in an official role repazentin' the second to highest office leading the 'free' world.  Lookism was no stranger either - looming.  Harris fulfills the narrow societal norms of conventional beauty.  When woman deemed attractive achieve positions of heft unparalleled, what is the correct approach: play down pretty or embrace face full stop?  

Fo'sooth, beyond difficult.  Any attempt to appease all elements, tiptoeing atop their own eggshells - a mosaic, precariously underfoot, of cracked subliminal signals - will assuredly trip up a blithe runway turn.  And yet?  What for others is a Sisyphean boulder is quotidian upon a Sistah's shoulder.  The 'space' navigator of this complicated presentation challenged by disproportionate nuance?  She stands vertical.  A classic occasion to which women of color have risen.  On subliminal cue.  For centuries.

A behemoth 'check' on beauty, the pinnacle of fashion journalism?  Could not deliver.  A picture.  To be clear, sum'in specific occurred and the naming of it is why one's avoidance of white gaze must be visited.  The keenest editorial eye in Da Bidness could not see.  Priv rendered it incapacitated.  To discern.  Its very second nature?  Choked.  White gaze could not stop at the imposition of film obscuring its eye; managerial throats were coat...ed thick in their awe of white priv's halo.  The floater kind, marring vision, creating distracting glare - surrounding 'object' - at night.  Nights where mixology mythology distills 'orange' cognac cognitive dissonance.  Harris, then?  Invisible.  White gaze - eva priving - directly grasped her image.  Instantaneously, howe'er, their grasp slipped.  Because priv is not saint but sieve, she - still - was neither held nor seen.  Not as whole enuf to warrant that customary cover's aesthetic inching of humanity just past our height.  Or if too lofty a goal, a portrait befitting stature would have sufficed.  The final word is from one mouth - consolidating all command.  Those lips green light below one nose.  If those two nostrils turn up at a handbag yet in production, the shunned accessory is pronounced dead on arrival as it tries to premier on Bergdorf's shelf.  Done.  Neva happened.  Because dhem dhat hold down the castle were not impressed.  That is the level of taste deference which this cover's depiction was supposed to receive.  Nuttin' mo'.

Would that February 2021's issue was the first time fashion's lionized kitten heel misstepped.  Many have attributed the inability of the Camp theme to execute with resounding success at 2019's Met Gala as the appropriation of its roots.  Susan Sontag may have written of Camp in the sixties but it was her disassociated observation of queer folk of color who invented Camp as an absurdist response to identity persecution.  Camp allowed their taboo eyelashes to wink, giving them a coded claim, comfort, and communal fame - to frame - amongst only those who could grasp the décor as bridge from ache to irony.  Too loaded for heteronorm-colonizin' priv to 'hold'; extrapolatin' not what is critically heavy from that which is staged cleverly 'light'.  Hence, an exclusive ball documented by press o' priv?!  A display hollow, where Camp could only go to die.  If Camp was not intersectionally invincible.

Music is oft played during photo shoots - to apparently set mood for a model and/or unite them with photographer in some symbiotic flow of shared image creation.  Lin Manuel Miranda wrote The Room Where It Happens for his musical of another historic duel.  As John Bolton can attest, this phrasing - e'en to a tune far less catchy - is too tempting for the titular thief.  All ethical persuasions understand well that 'being in the room' is what counts.  To being counted.  Howe'er, many who have gained access to 'the room' can testify - at length - that entrance into 'the room' equates not automatic influence.  White women are oft subjected to Rebbeca Solnit's astute observation of "mansplaining"; women of color are not.  Poof! upon the blink of white gaze, color is too invisible to justify his lecture.  When Sheryl Sanberg encouraged women to Lean In, the advise assumed the "lean" would even be detected.  And if so, would not be perceived as a threatening aggression or 'attitudinal' posturing from which Sanberg is immune.  To lean is a form of body language.  Therefo' one's body must be acknowledged as first, a body of equitable measure, and second, as present and thereby worthy to be 'read' within the same visceral vernacular.  How can a shift to "lean" be noted otherwise? 

Too o'erwhelmed, arguably by priv more than the stereotropes to defy, the sanctioned arbiter of taste inadvertently conceded defeat.  Incapable of carelessness on the job, the editorial choice reverberates with unsettling indifference.  Not surprising but nevadaless disappointing.  There is an instructional distinction 'twixt "sloppy" - as some have charged - and a more feasible oblivious lens.  There is equally a fraught history of certain citizenry arriving in their 'Sunday Best', forced to count jelly beans in a jar as a poll tax.  Threading the subjective needle: to dress was an invocation of dignity.  Next week when Harris ascends to an exalted position due to her party's ticket elected, a parallel universe to that voter suppression spins on its axis.  A Mario Cuomo quote is eerily applicable - in retrograde: “You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.  Harris campaigned in 'kicks' but this rarified portrayal arguably proved impotent in relaying the transformative synergy 'twixt 'down to Earth' or 'of the demos' and on the...'hallowed ground'...that her victory leans stands.  

One is inexplicably driven to quote another politician of a similar inconvenient ilk: the second Bush administration defined "low expectations" as "soft bigotry."  The distinction is murky when the offense is not intentional and defense tone-deaf.  Elegance is a sensorial experience upon which some have insisted when overtly denied.  Tonality speaks volumes and the requisite glamour associated with this endeavor swerved off-course.  Seeking an attainable aura, the editorial table took for granted that while it might forge ahead, mapping a more relaxed route to mirror a society in dire flux, the same whom it has been remiss to address cannot afford to extend the latitude of eased alternatives in perception - rarely in favor.  When judged upon biased sight, 'impression' can meet discordant resonance.  Therein lies the conflict, an incongruence arced in an ambivalent rind - H2Omeloncholic within the expectation of a perceived visual media accolade.  The resolution is not in the cut of the tailoring of any suit, nor in the lacing up of any sneaker, nor in the draping of any background.  What is accessible need not be as aspirational but it can be immaculately inspired.  The editors seemed to focus on preventing distancing Harris from the reader.  In a Tolstoyic episode, they oddly accomplished that familiarity, throwing their already uneven reputation under their own luxury train.  A deft touch can keep an ensemble 'on track',  flipping attire held egalitarian on its head, whilst garnering praise for garb in an Instagram tweet.  Industry cannot intuit that depth of street savvy.

Quickly, to recover, one relies upon the Bard over W.'s speech writer.  One vacates keyboard typing to wipe fried grease from one's fingertips - briefly hushed beneath a spotlight - holding up a chicken bone:
Behind loco motive steam, a renowned meticulous crown morphed into a Kareninaesque cap.  The quintessential 'style' publication abdicated its sartorial authority.  It simply could not read the lay-out...of an awakening landscape.  As unfortunate as their deer-frozen-in-Chanel-sunglass-ed-approach translated - breeching its own ethic whilst boding ill for the wider ether's evolution - perhaps the possible sterling lining to this hot mess of a haute couture cloud is that like policing and other societal structures collapsing under the weight of white priv, this recent dalliance with denial suggests magazine monarchy should also be abolished.  Or in a subtler responsibility for the ramifications of its influence, it might consider - like Meghan n' Harry - quiet relocation from the seat of power.  As no advocate of the conscious-contentious 'cancel' or 'call out' nor unemployment, one's impetus, sho' sooth, is 'calling in'.  Hopes of dismantling are wished unto ills that organizations possess.  The exorcism removes that incompatible presence haunting the host whilst said host, well-heeled, is indispensable to the human project moving forward.  Notably - and to no minor measure - chic support for the tennis-phenom Williams sisters was earlier at Vogue than a fuller embrace of their elegance by their 'own'. 

Further, one wishes not for the glossy itself to shine less bright - for its September issue indelibly satisfies sum'in elemental.  The excitement is unique - like the thrill of flicking that flimsy cardboard window - just one a day - in an Advent calendar.  Let none be denied joy.  Still, that expert eye ain't as sharp when its prism bursts when blinded by the majesty of our rainbow spectrum.  Like Confederate monuments removed from the public square, perhaps popular consciousness is betta served if a cultural pedestal askew forfeits its throne at the collective newsstand - cornered - in our minds.  Crevices of the zeitgeist need no longer yield undeservedly to a false hierarchical stamp of aesthetic approval.  As its own proprietary promise is to remain two seasons ahead, it cannot be thus: awkward at least and ineffectual at most - to meet this or any moment.  Langston Hughes knew the imminent words in his ...The Negro...In Vogue:  "When"...n'..."Was".  Ay, a time frame(d).  Captured.  Fleeting glory.  One infers not, tho', any cover's 'subject' as a trend.  Nah, my good peops.  That which is transitory cannot transform.  Hugh's Harlem also had a Striver's Row.  (to)Front.  Camera-ready, all up in the show.  No longer dog-earing White Priv to crease in consternation, that page is turned; Priv can no longer strike a pose.   


a clever as compassionate critique 
on the implausibility 
of POSTness


Til our next 'post', feast upon produce in season...


© 2021 KM Fikes 
© 2021 h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com 


Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from KM Fikes is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to KM Fikes & h2omeloncholy@blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.  No excerpt or link may be used for monetary compensation.



 

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