From what I'm seeing on Twitter, I get the idea that I'm supposed to wear black tonight while watching The Golden Globes.
I often wear black, but I'm not wearing it tonight. This wasn't a political decision. It's just I took a shower and then grabbed the first T-shirt I saw in my T-shirt drawer.
I'm not planning to wear my blue shirt and grey shorts while watching The Golden Globes. I'm going to wear these colors as I watch The Crown on Netflix.
I love TV. I'm grateful to actors, writers, directors, etc. for the work they do. But...why do I need to show support by watching these workers win awards? It's like if I have a favorite candy bar, I just eat the candy bar. I don't watch an award show about candy and admire the dresses of the candy makers.
Now I MIGHT watch some clips tomorrow if I hear something funny, brilliant, or outrageous happened. But besides that...I've learned my life is made better by avoiding the long drawn out affair.
I hope that if something brilliant happens, it involves people speaking out against abuse. Because, personally, I think wearing black is totally not enough. I think it's an empty gesture. I don't like it. I also don't like solidarity pins. I'm not very impressed with pussy hats. I didn't like the ice bucket challenge. The problem with these gestures is not just that they're sometimes empty, but because it might lead us to judge those who don't participate.
What if a woman goes to a party tonight and is wearing purple instead of black? What if she didn't know the dress code and the meaning behind it? What if she doesn't own a black dress? Or what if she owns a black dress, but she was raped in it, and it's in a angry, depressed heap at the bottom of her closet?
And the women wearing black tonight? How do we know for sure that they give a shit and aren't just doing it because of social pressure? Or they could care, but that's not why they wore a black dress. Maybe it's just a lucky coincidence.
I did like one idea that I saw—women all wearing the SAME black dress. The idea here was that everyone would dress alike, and so there wouldn't be annoying questions about who are you wearing. Instead the questions could directly go to more serious subjects. I think that, though, would be more of a protest against fashion obsession and less about sexual assault.
Edited to Add: I was thinking about it some more. Though I'm not a supporter of fashion-activism-via-conformity, I AM cool with political T-shirts and stuff like that. It's still an empty gesture compared to with doing things like volunteering your time, donating your money, opening up your home to strangers, etc. But...it's minus the conformity bit. And it can be fun reading the different messages.
That would have been cool if there had been no pressure to wear black at the Golden Globes. What if we were expecting celebrities to dress in the usual expensive gowns but instead a few of them wore awesome T-shirts with powerful messages?
Edited to Add: I was thinking about it some more. Though I'm not a supporter of fashion-activism-via-conformity, I AM cool with political T-shirts and stuff like that. It's still an empty gesture compared to with doing things like volunteering your time, donating your money, opening up your home to strangers, etc. But...it's minus the conformity bit. And it can be fun reading the different messages.
That would have been cool if there had been no pressure to wear black at the Golden Globes. What if we were expecting celebrities to dress in the usual expensive gowns but instead a few of them wore awesome T-shirts with powerful messages?
What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there
was life after death, and
we could easily talk to our
dearly-departed on the Internet?
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts