GLAMOUR AND POSE
ARCO 2000 panel. 15th February.
The idea of glamour traditionally comes from Anglo-Saxon culture. Glamour was implanted the length and breadth of what we call the Western World from the beginning of this century (coinciding with the economic boom of the '20's in the USA). The term "glamour" is an English expression that Spanish dictionaries translate as "charming" or "attractive" and the infinitive verb "to glam up" as meaning "to beautify, adorn, improve the appearance of". Other translations insist that this "charm" should also be necessarily mysterious and exercise some sort of special attraction. It also appears that the use the Press makes of the term rather reinforces these interpretations, though they might well be applied to a wide variety of personalities and styles. When we call upon glamour, we set a number of very varied processes and ideologies into motion that are often frequently contradictory among themselves. It is a concept englobing different realities, something that also signifies that our trying to complete the catalogue covering the many different forms glamour might have poses some rather serious problems.
Deciding what or who might be glamorous, and who or what might not, is a completely subjective process. For example, for some people, a fur coat is a luxury article that absolutely reeks of glamour, while, for others, it is the remains of a body of an animal that has been savagely butchered, an attack on our environment and a naturalised sign of human cruelty. In either case, it is also true that we can highlight at least three common characteristics of all expressions of glamour: One, glamour is always a strategy of power. The individual or group that makes show of glamour needs another social group that considers it a reference. Two, this mechanism must have a certain stability in time; and three, that in every instance, glamour is a social value, and a positive social value at that. In other words, someone or something glamorous is someone or something that is better. Being glamorous is fine, it makes you part of the desirable universe and concedes power to whoever makes a show of it. It is therefore necessary that we should ask ourselves how glamour is defined, who defines it and with what intentions. But glamour is a social construction that changes with time. It's a dynamic concept that obeys the specific interests of any one period and which, furthermore, is related to several different fields, such as the way we dress and fashion, body language, architecture and interior decoration, different consumer trends, etc. The idea of glamour conveys a whole lifestyle.
In order to take a deeper look at this phenomenon from a feminist perspective, we will need at least three central social science categories: class, sex and race reveal themselves as the most suitable instruments for the analysis.
Continuing with this division from which we have started, glamour, in its traditional sense, is a pledge of dominating power, something that makes prevailing social structure appear to be attractive, whilst reinforcing it at the same time. In addition to which, it seeks to do this invisibly since, as Roland Barthes explained, a Bourgeois society produces signs that have no resemblance to signs. In this way, it occupies itself with attributing a secondary position and rank to women, for "flower-vase" women, for example, who are never allowed to get older, should she wish to remain being considered as such (an entire industry exists that does its best to convince them of this and make it indeed possible). Of course the most glamorous race is white-skinned (the example of Michael Jackson is particularly revealing when considered from this particular perspective) and, in order to be glamorous, one has to belong to the upper classes (everyone agrees that a residential neighbourhood is much more glamorous than a working class one). The quest for material wealth is advanced as being the final objective of people's projects in life. The maxim of this type of glamour is financial power and this continuous to remain heterosexual. However, this official picture of glamour that remains in spite of the numerous attacks it has received has to share space increasingly with other models of alternative glamour, appearances of what might be described as new forms of glamour. From the '60's on, for example, alienated groups such as women, Afro-Americans, gays, lesbians and both male and female transsexuals make social advances at the same time as they generate processes and ideologies that use glamour as an instrument to challenge prevailing, dominant systems: patriarchy, if you like. These sub-cultural processes constitute a menace that's just waiting to happen and which has two final outcomes: one, the social group that supposes the menace finishes by accepting the ideologies of power and is absorbed by it, by dint of which the menace disappears and status quo is thereby reinforced, or two: the social group that supposes the menace mixes with power without renouncing its ideology, thus extending power and transforming it.
We are going to make a short pause to briefly describe two examples, two strategies that use glamour as a social transformation process and which illustrate the new forms of glamour we have previously described.
VOGUING AND DRAG QUEENS
The documentary "Paris is burning" that director, Jennie Livingstone, premiered in 1990 has been acclaimed and awarded several prizes for the portrait it offers of Afro-American and Latin gay cultures in the city of New York. The movie explores the Houses in the New York neighbourhood of Harlem at the end of the '80's. A "House" is a society of gays and drag queens ("drag queen" in the New York sense of the expression also includes transvestites) that has all the appearance of a street gang. Houses are made up of a mother and children. The role of the Mother is that of presiding over the society and taking care of and offering advice to the society's members. The Balls celebrated are the dances the Houses organise in Ballrooms that are turned into sorts of clubs in which people meet and compete against one other. The Ball competition is split up into different categories, from the Wearer of the Best Cocktail Gown to the best "Butch Queen", without forgetting prizes for Best Executive (in both sexes), Top Model, etc. In this way, they make sure that everyone finds the space they need to express themselves and project their particular fantasies. The competition is based on the degree of "realness" that, in the film, is defined as the art of hiding one's true identity in order to transform him, or herself, into the person that he, or she, would really like to be.
The character making her triumphal entrance in the scenes we have just seen is Pepper Labeija, Mother of the House of Labeija and it is her voice we hear off-screen as we watch the footage that refer us to the idea of traditional glamour towards the end of the second sequence. I quote her words here: "Every time I see how the rich live, I feel as if I've been slapped in the face and I think I've got to have the same because I've never felt comfortable being poor ... I don't even fit in to the Middle Class. Seeing the rich is like watching how people live in "Dynasty", with those enormous houses. They've got 42 rooms!! What kind of a house is that?? We've got three rooms. I've always felt ripped off when I see things like that". Unquote. For Pepper Labeija, glamour is the way, the lifestyle, of the rich. In addition to which, she is very conscious that, in the United States, the rich are predominantly white and they present themselves before society as being heterosexuals. Paradoxically, glamour is a central question for this community that's located on the lowest rungs of New York society. They are low class, they belong to Afro-American and Latin communities and, what's more, they're gay. In fact, they only people below them are the women that surround them. And glamour is a central question for this community because they have been sold the idea of the "American Dream" by the use of glamour because glamour functions as a publicity strategy in the social contract in force. For this very reason, we should not be surprised that their response is also an aesthetic strategy: the Balls they organise. As other characters in the documentary say: "For us, a ball is the nearest we're ever going to get to all the reality of fame, fortune, stardom and floodlights". "It's like going through the looking-glass and coming out in Wonderland on the other side. You go to all the Balls and feel 100% good about being gay. It's not exactly like the real world; the real world should be like this".
Aware that their situation is due to a complicated fabric of race-sex-class, they respond to the bombardment of glamorous images that society sustains and return their own image using the very same strategy: glamour. The balls are glamorous celebrations of this difference and two cultural phenomena arise from them that catch the eye of society in the '90's: drag queens and voguing.
Voguing is a dance that glorifies camp corporal expression, which is precisely the cultural artefact that defines gender in "mistaken" sexes, were the predominant ideology to be believed. However, it is also a sign of activism because it questions and challenges tradition. The glamour of "Voguers" and drag queens with their provocative gestures and postures comes from the celebration of this difference.
"Paris is burning" mirrors the phenomenon of the Balls from 1987 to 1989, when they have already caught the attention of the Press and the culture industries perceive that there are benefits to be obtained from what is suddenly described as "the new fashion trend". Malcolm McLaren is the first person to cash in on it with his records "Deep in Vogue" and "Waltz, Darling", but it is Madonna who is responsible for finally establishing the trend with her hit single "Vogue".
On the other hand, the phenomenon of drag queens quickly climbs to unusual heights, reaching proportions that require a specific study of the phenomenon. However, we would like to point out the role that the category of race has in all this, which is much more than being a mere anecdote. As everyone knows, Ru Paul became the spear point of a movement that gave way to a new kind of social type. In addition to music, the Press and movies such as the emblematic "Priscilla and the Queen of the Desert" and "To Wong Foo, with thanks, Julie Newmar", have also played a fundamental role in its consolidation. In the '90's, the glamour of drag queens served to popularise feminist theories about sex, gender and sexuality, though the results of this process are far from clear. In fact, some voices denounce that the feminist struggle has suffered several steps backward in the process. For example, the fact that feminism was rendered invisible is a masculine construct that corroborates the promotion of a new front in order to naturalise sex.
WOMEN IN ROCK 'N' ROLL, FEMALE ROCK STARS
The group being interviewed and who we've just seen playing live was Siouxsie & the Banshees. The footage, filmed in Berlin in 1980, comes from the film documentary, "Girls Bite Back". Under this title, the film's director, Wolfgang Büld, recreates the phenomenon that arose during the second half of the '70's: female rock stars. The movie brings such diverse artists together as The Slits, Nina Hagen, Girlschool and even Siouxsie herself together and the film is made up from interviews and performances that were taped for a German TV channel. During those very same years and directly associated with the rise of women in rock, another cultural phenomenon violently appeared on the scene: the Punk movement.
In a recent interview given to a gay British magazine called "Boyz", Siouxsie remembers Punk and has the following to say:
"Punk wasn't just a musical trend, it was a uniting together of unadapted people that made us all feel much more self-confident. It was a question of "us against the world", a matter of pride and self-esteem, of not feeling like we were ugly ducklings. But I've always loved glamour, even though I hated the idea that, in order to be truly glamorous, you need lots of money. What was fantastic about Punk was that there was lots of glamour on the streets, even although nobody had any money in their pockets. People confected their own glamour. A generalised rejection was felt about buying anything coming from the worlds of design or fashion".
This was Siouxsie's social context, but British society also offered other peculiarities that made the rise of a woman as an idol for youth much easier. The history of the feminist movement in the United Kingdom is full of social conquests, from suffragettes to the brilliant publications edited by theoretics of the '70's and '80's, the outcome of which is that English society is much more permeable to activities promoted by women.
But, since discrimination against women is a global problem, it comes as no surprise to us to learn that Siouxsie's strategy worked not only in, but also outside the United Kingdom. Let us stop for a moment and take another look at the first part of the interview we've just watched in video:
Question: What plans have you got for the future?.
Siouxsie: Get married, … grow up and have children.
Question: That doesn't seem very interesting. Have you tried that already?.
Steven Severin (band member): Have kids? You? What do you know about having kids?.
Siouxsie: I'm going to take my time. No, I've never tried it before.
Steven Severin: Must be pretty painful.
Siouxsie: Yes (silence). Don't you think someone wants to marry me?.
Response: They probably do, yes.
Siouxsie: You see?!!
Siouxsie's answers are much more than amusing responses used in an attempt to counteract and neutralise the embarrassment of her being exposed to the public. Siouxsie answers the German TV interviewer sarcastically. She laughs about what she's expected to be or do. She places the pressure that a 20-year-old woman is suffering, a woman who's starting to think about marriage and having children, firmly back on the shoulders of the interviewer. In fact, what Siouxsie is really saying that she has made her decision, and that she has chosen to do exactly the opposite because she could, of course, have taken the other alternative. "Don't you think someone wants to marry me?". She doesn't marry, not because she can't, but because she doesn't want to get married. Her attitude, her pose during the
interview, is that of rebelliousness against patriarchy, the very same attitude the artist projects on stage. Siouxsie's glamour comes from her rebelliousness. But the strategies of glamour require aesthetics and Siouxsie is responsible for constructing some rather peculiar aesthetics that turned out to be very successful in the decade of the '80's, a "look" that, with several mutations, has resisted the passage of time. Her character has maintained itself sufficiently long enough for her to be considered as a clear reference to the legendary style exhibited by Marlene Dietrich or Joan Crawford, the type of woman who transforms herself into a myth for determined feminists and gay, lesbian, transvestite and transsexual communities. She represents the paradigm of tireless fighters; women prepared to defend their objectives tooth and nail. It should therefore come as no surprise that, with the editing of her latest record and her return to her initial attitude with her band The Creatures, Siouxsie consolidated herself as a glamorous model for the gay British community. The Spanish gay press also commented upon the phenomenon. The Shanghai Express explained the motives for her creating her character:
"I started off towards the end of the '70's as a reaction to people's attitudes at that particular moment in time. My character was the direct antithesis of everything that was considered beautiful and attractive, what everybody (above all women) wanted to achieve: to be nice, manageable, to never answer back for any reason, to be blonde, tanned, sweet… I chose exactly the opposite: dark hair, I never went out in the sun but kept my skin white and, above everything else, I annoyed people".
SUMMARY
By way of summary, we should remember that the system of analysis regarding new forms of glamour included the premise that the process supposing the threat to power always had two final outcomes. The time has come to ask ourselves questions such as: to what degree has the conditions of life of gays, drag queens and transsexuals in Harlem changed from the time when voguing and the drag queen phenomena were made public? To what degree has the public image of these communities changed? And, how has the presence of a character such as Siouxsie changed the panorama of the record business for women? As far as Siouxsie is concerned, the question appears to be much simpler to answer. Siouxsie represents the existence of a new '70's icon, a different model for identification and a new open niche for women in the music industry.
These two examples illustrate the tremendous variety the new glamour forms catalogue offers, as opposed to those classic, unique images we can only describe as being traditionally glamorous. However, it is no less certain that this new range of possibilities perpetuates a hierarchy and follows the customs of the social pyramid surrounding it. What is more, subversive glamour icons can be transformed into icons that pose no problems, as in the cases of several mythicised women, such as Eva Perón and Eleanor Roosevelt, who will be remembered as glamorous myths, but whose true significance as models is still being denied. They were two women who practiced politics and governed the destinies of their respective countries towards the beginning of the XX century. If new forms of glamour are susceptible to power mythicising them to empty them of their content, then not only glamour icons, but also the communities they represent must also comprehend the political connotations of their strategies very clearly if they do not want them to be neutralised by the very power they challenge.
Xabier Arakistain.
