This column may contain strong language, sexual content, adult humor, and other themes that may not be suitable for minors. Parental guidance is strongly advised.
A preview of the Pirelli calendar for 2017 has just been released. Lensed by Peter Lindbergh, it features the usual, as is customary. Hot women, of course. Legs, yes. Cleavage, some.
Same old, same old, you’re thinking? Not at all. For one thing, the models are not young, nubile beauties. They’re not all pouty lips and hips thrust forward. They’re not even models, really, but actresses. And they are, shall we say, women of a certain age. And it shows.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
For too long, the notion of feminine beauty that has been peddled in the mainstream media is that of a youthful, natural, and fresh look that is paradoxically overtly sexual—and artfully rouged, contoured, glossed, airbrushed, and photoshopped.
Girls as young as 15 would be heavily packaged and glamorized to project a sexuality beyond their years, cued to strike poses that are heavily suggestive without being outright pornographic. I believe “tasteful” and “artistic” are the words commonly used, but the real objective of these images, if still unclear to anyone, is to provoke a thousand fantasies and a thousand boners in men of all ages and stations.
Perhaps it’s an indication of our need to return to “authenticity” (however abused that term might be) and the importance of offering images of relatable women exuding a strength, and confidence, and power that should be considered beautiful and sexy. Last year, Pirelli chose the likes of Serena Williams and Amy Schumer as its pin-up girls for the 2016 calendar, with Annie Leibovitz photographing them. Granted, they were not your usual size 2 models; nor did they flaunt traditional va-va-voom bodies. If anything, Serena and Amy brought voluptuousness to subversive new levels, muffin rolls, prominent calves, pronounced lats, and all.
So is powerful the new sexy? Is unretouched the new beautiful?
For next year, Pirelli went again for the unvarnished version of beauty, tapping actresses such as Nicole Kidman, Helen Mirren, Uma Thurman, Julianne Moore, and Robin Wright to grace the 2017 calendar in their natural, un-airbrushed glory, a wrinkle or two evident, freckles, and liver spots unconcealed.
Many men may disagree that these are the faces—or bodies—that would launch a thousand boners. But perhaps that is no longer the point. Changing perceptions of female beauty, and indeed what makes a woman sexy, starts with representation. Images of women owning the reality that we age, we droop, we wrinkle, yet we remain confident of our allure can be deeply empowering. They reinforce our sense of agency: we are sexy, no matter what our age, because we feel sexy, we feel strong, and we feel confident. Our worth is not determined by the approval of the male gaze. We know what we want, and if a man can’t deal with that, it’s his problem, not ours.
Peter Lindbergh call his images for Pirelli “a cry against the terror of perfection.” The absence of makeup feels raw, for sure, but it also feels real. There is an inherent irony in the way a woman is made up to represent a standard of beauty designed to appeal mainly to men, yet men often say that they prefer women to look “natural.” Nicole Kidman said as much during the shoot: “I know from my personal life that my husband totally prefers me without makeup on. And I’m sure there’s an enormous amount of men in this room who say, I love women with no makeup, at their most natural.”
The other irony, of course, is that the billion-dollar cosmetics industry also peddles a “natural” look that is achievable through the skilled use of makeup. Business, of course, must always adjust to demand, and if women (and men) want that fresh-faced, effortlessly natural kind of beauty, they have the right shade of blush, the best hue of barely-there eyeshadow, the cleverest can’t-even-tell-it’s-there highlighter and concealer and primer and foundation and finishing powder to help you achieve just that effect.
One woman who’s decided she’s done with makeup—aside from Alicia Keys, who is stunning with or without artifice—is Hillary Clinton. The rare public appearances she has made since election night show her bare-faced, free of any visible makeup.
The impact is undeniably striking. Yes, she seems at first glance tired and haggard. After all, she just ran a grueling presidential campaign. But at the same time, clichéd as it sounds, she does exude a kind of peace that is attractive. It’s as if she were saying she gives zero fucks, after 30 years of public life, 30 years of conforming to some standard of how a woman is supposed to be, especially the wife of a governor, the wife of a president, a female senator, a female Secretary of State, a female presidential candidate, and that standard dictates a certain amount of artifice—blush, lipstick, eyeliner—to look presentable, palatable, presidential.
A New York Times Magazine piece last October revealed just how much Hillary Clinton has had to conform throughout the years just to please an electorate that claimed to want substance, but insisted on the trappings of submission. She dropped Rodham and took her husband’s name, Clinton, did the good wife thing, and dressed the part.
After Bill Clinton’s devastating loss to Frank White in the 1980 Arkansas gubernatorial race, Hillary Rodham set about becoming “Hillary Clinton.” White’s wife Gay, was convinced that how voters perceived Hillary “was very much a factor.”
When Bill ran again two years later against White, according to Gay, Hillary “changed everything: her whole appearance, her wardrobe. She started wearing make-up. She took Bill’s last name. They did the things they needed to do.”
And it worked.
And now she’s done with the whole circus. As Lux Alphatrum writes in Quartz:
“With her face unpainted, it’s almost as if Clinton is returning to an earlier iteration, reclaiming her identity as the accomplished, aggressive lawyer Hillary Rodham, who pursued success while rejecting the rules put forth by the patriarchy. And why not? For the past three decades, Clinton played by those rules with dedication and aplomb, and she still couldn’t break that highest, hardest glass ceiling. Perhaps it’s time to throw out the rulebook and start again, beginning with the conviction that women, like men, are—more than madonnas or whores or angels or sluts or any of the other categories we routinely box half the population into. If there’s any silver lining to this election mess, it’s that after 40 years of scrutiny and stricture, Hillary Clinton is finally, triumphantly, human again.”
What a welcome contrast from the orange Cheeto about to take up residence in the White House. After all, she won the popular vote. By more than 2.5 million votes.
B. Wiser is the author of Making Love in Spanish, a novel published earlier this year by Anvil Publishing and available in National Book Store and Powerbooks, as well as online. When not assuming her Sasha Fierce alter-ego, she takes on the role of serious journalist and media consultant.
For comments and questions, e-mail b.wiser.ph@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author in her private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of Preen.ph, or any other entity of the Inquirer Group of Companies.
Photo courtesy of Peter Lindenbergh for Pirelli Calendar
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