In grainy, gorgeous, dated Technicolor was Liz Taylor on the cover of Vanity Fair. Classically, stunningly beautiful.
The photograph transports you to a time when one-pieces weren’t just for people too self-conscious to put on a bikini and something as simple as her strap sliding off her shoulder was pretty darn provocative and the media portrayed people as PEOPLE.
Among her peers on the magazine rack, Liz seemed the only human represented.
When you look at the three of these together, your eyes play tricks on you. What’s pretty and what’s weird? What’s perfect and what’s not? Do we trust old photographs or HD to tell us the truth? As my dad pointed up (thank goodness he's so conscious. Dads shape their children’s feminist consciousness just as much as Moms do, but that’s a topic for another day.), One of These Things is Not Like the Other. Liz is the only one who hasn’t been photo shopped within an inch of her life. The ONLY reason I recognized the practically comical perfection of the other two is because Vanity Fair very kindly reminded me what real people look like. Otherwise, I would have glanced at the Cosmo and the Glamor and thought nothing of them.
All of our generations with Barbie and her various mutations have finally caught up to us. We want plastic. We want giant eyes and tiny waists and other weird, crazy stuff that makes beauty so unattainable that no one will ever look like Jessica Biel. Not even Jessica Biel.
And don’t even get me started on the article titles.
All the memorial coverage of Elizabeth Taylor (and most of the coverage throughout her life) made sure that we knew just how beautiful she was. And she was incredibly beautiful. BUT she was also awesome. She was a gifted and accomplished actress. In fact, she won the Oscar for best actress twice. She was also a vocal and instrumental HIV/AIDS activist and humanitarian.
Count her husbands and talk about her lavender eyes all you want. She was a talented, deserving, well-respected artist and a self-sufficient, dedicated, WOMAN.
Rest In Peace, Liz.
(2/27/1932 - 3/23/2011)
-E
My first encounter with Liz was in "National Velvet". I was such a horse junkie at the time that I barely noticed Liz. I knew she was extraordinarily pretty, but so what? Next to the horse, she was just another pretty girl. It wasn't until much later that I was made very aware of her superior beauty - the kind of beauty that none of us "mortal" women could ever aspire to. She was simply "other" - that special category that separates "us" from "them". Much later, when I became aware of her efforts regarding the fight against AIDS, I began to greatly admire her in a different way.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tribute - she richly deserves the accolades.
Emma you constantly amaze me. I must add a subject to that "discussion for another day": Dads must have the courage to learn from thier children especially daughters:) Thanks for keeping me educated.
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