Makeunder: Why Do You Wear Makeup, You Little Hooker Clowns, You?
14 April 2008, 6:30 PM. By Daniel Mauser
Tilda Swinton is a talented Academy Award-winning actress. But that’s probably not as important as the fact that she didn’t wear any makeup to said awards ceremony. Right? Right. As such, The New York Times Style Magazine’s Alex Kuczynski sat down with Tilda to talk about the mask of makeup that separates many women, and a few historic sad clowns, from the world:
The virginity of her unpainted flesh made everyone around her look like a crowd of aging, insecure hookers. I admired her for going without a double deck of fake eyelashes, for braving the television lights without a whisper of powder or blush — for being what passes for naked in Hollywood in front of millions, if not billions, of people. On television, she looked like a fabulous alien. In person, people must have stopped and stared. Don’t you think the other actresses must have gossiped to one another in the bathroom?
We think they were too busy aging hookerishly. Also, even though Alex Kuczynski is, like all Alex’s, completely bathshit crazy, we’ve got to admit that she knows her way around a nice descriptive paragraph. She describes Tilda as she applies a Pierrotesque mask of colors:
Swinton wears makeup in this portrait to mock it, its application a farce. Crayons and unguents dare to mimic real beauty; here, she mocks them. They are clearly paint, an overlay, a spackle that disfigures her real face. Any woman who has used spackle that disfigures her real face. Any woman who has used makeup can look at this photo and imagine the actual shades in the service of beauty, and realize, with a shudder, that there is nothing more yearning and sinister than a woman’s face covered in carefully applied paint, mascara and shadow.
Obvious and kind of a pretentious, overblown depiction of what amounts to a slightly self-important actress playing with lipstick, but, still. Nice imagery!
Which brings us to our question for you: What, exactly, are we doing when we put on makeup? Masking age? Highlighting positive attributes? Lying? We remember reading somewhere that, subconsciously, women apply lipstick and gloss in order to make their mouth more resemble labia. Which is silly, because that’s what our piercings are for. And why be redundant?
We admit that we love playing with makeup - using crazy (tacky) colors and glitter and laying on heavy liquid eyeliner so that we look not unlike a 14-year-old Hot Topics enthusiast named Raven. But we’ve recently been troubled by the realization that we never leave the house without makeup. We just feel kind of vulnerable and plain without it. So, lately, we’ve been venturing out more and more with less or no makeup at all, just to make ourselves uncomfortable.
But… would you? Have you? Do share, Aging Hooker Clowns. Do share.
Extreme Makeover [NY Times]
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Pierrot, eh? I guess someone was paying attention in Music Hum!!!
I personally aim to look like a hot, sexy beeatch when I put on makeup. This is achieved via black pencil eyeliner, L’Oreal voluminous mascara, Nars “deep throat” blush, and Chantecaille Brilliant lip gloss in elated or charmed. And undereye concealer, for the undereye circles…Triumphantly, I wield my eyeliner in the air like She-Ra, and take on hot and sexy man-eating powers via surrounding my eyes with a deep, dark halo of probably lead-laced color. Thus ends this weeks episode of girly makeup fun fun fun!!!!
And Alex Kuzscinsky is *sort of?*Peruvian!! Latina angle FTW!!!
I sometimes go without makeup… i dont wear too much makeup anyway… I only wear mascara, eyeliner and lip gloss or chapstick (what ever i find first at the bottom of my bag)
I wear makeup. Because I like color and its fun. Today I wore blue eyeliner. It looked awesome! But I guess I should stop because looking hot is the same as asking someone to molest you on the subway.
I used to wear more makeup - eyeshadow and eyeliner and tons of mascara - until my little kid asked me to stop. She said that she liked me better without it. I stopped and was shocked to find out that nobody at my office seemed to notice. There was no “You look like Tilda Swinton at the Oscars!” But there was no “Are you feeling okay? You look sick,” either.
But I can’t give up the lipstick. I am truly hooked. I need that whole labia look going on so that every disdainful word out of my mouth is a secret queef.
@ Quintana: “Every disdainful word out of my mouth is a secret queef.” That is poetry.
Interesting post. ^_^
once in a while i’ll wear make up. but you can’t really tell either. Benefit Yourebel tinted face lotion, Benefit Benetint blush, mac eyelid concealer (to give my eyelids a nice base, and very light eyeshadow..i’m into translucent green from Urban Decay…then i top off my masterpiece with Chanel mascara and lipglass “C-thru” lipglass. my fiance hates this regiment though, he perfers me plain.
and amen to bronx about being molested on the subway cuz you doll up a bit!