I really love makeup. I wish I could wear it literally all the time. Unfortunately, thats not a possibility, not only because I am a "boy", but also because make-up is actually just plain expensive and I am too frugal to ever spend my (hardly existent) money on it. If I could though, I'd be wearing and applying make up all the time, because it makes me happy and it makes me feel unique. It also makes me feel extremely artistic, believe it or not.
Some people (like most of my close minded male friends) might think that I 'secretly' want to wear make up because I think that it makes me more like a girl or a woman. To be honest, I'm sometimes not so sure about this, however. On the one hand, I'm not ashamed to admit that I absolutely adore using make up in a way that makes me appear female , but on the other, I also think that interpreting make up as a strictly "female" thing is...well, pretty god damn ridiculous. Like I said, the chief reason I got started using make up had nothing to do with femininity. It was instead all about wanting to feel creative,like my favorite artists appeared to me, when they wore make up. In fact, one of the most inspiring early examples of make up use I saw, that always sticks out in my head, is when I watched videos of Bob Dylan -- of all people -- on the "ROlling Thunder Revue" tour, where he painted his face with white make-up. I thought it was fascinating and it reminded me of Ancient Greece or something like that, and i immediately, as an artist, wanted to integrate the style into my own stage performances. When I would imagine how it would feel, to not only be able to play my guitar, but to also be able to play it whilst dressed in a costume with face paint on, it would feel really incredible to me. I'd feel deeply engrossed in the "musician' character I so desperately wanted to play.
Therefore, as I tell you: For me, my interest in make up had nothing to do with females. That was all only something that came later, once I was wandering around in the make up room and I also realized how easy it was to use the paint to transform into someone who looked "female". Nevertheless, the fact remains: To me, something thats strictly female is a tampon or a pregnancy test or maybe a baby sucking at your breast. To put make up into the category of "strictly" female is a very big shame, because its a direct limitation of ones inherent "right" to express ones self through an art form. An art form is really all that make up ever was.
At this point in human history, to try and keep make-up as something solely for women, is completely the same as trying to keep something like the arts themselves, or an Ivy League campus, for instance, only for men. It no longer makes sense. I'll even go so far as to say that, if someone were to stumble upon this article 100 years from now, where I'm arguing that men shouldn't have to feel bad or like they want to be women, for wearing make up,, I bet it will hardly even be totally understood. This entire culture of people that, in our own time, are quite literally "terrified" of make up, is going to seem just as absurd as the culture of people in the 1800s, who were afraid of seeing a womans bare legs. In fact, you know what I honestly think will be considered scary, for the generations of the future? Some people might not like the idea, but I think it's going to be the way most of us dare to go out looking now, with the plain faces we have. Most people of the year 2018 would probably tell you that they find pictures of people from the 1800s or 1700s pretty odd looking. I predict this will be exactly the same for the future. They'll look back at our pictures, especially the pictures of men, and they'll be in shock at how none of us males used makeup. They just won't understand what everyone was so afraid of. If they do their reading of course, they'll quickly come to realize what one of the real big reasons was. Not surprisingly, its the same reason we used to be afraid of seeing a womans bare legs, even at the beach: Religion.
No comments:
Post a Comment