Thursday, February 3, 2011

Championing Jane Eyre

Kate at Eat the Damn Cake meditates here on the word plain. My favorite part is this:

Personally, I don’t believe in plainness. I don’t think it exists. I’ve never seen a person who looked plain. And I refuse to allow people to be rendered invisible and meaningless by their appearances. How can you have a face and be plain?

In my interviews with women, the word itself has come up quite a bit (in the transcripts, not in what I've published), but I've noted that the word only comes up when the speaker is talking about other people. "I have friends who think they're plain," "Somebody might be what you might call plain"—that sort of thing.

You know what word hasn't come up? Ugly. Except in one distinct context: When the speaker is saying what they're not. "I mean, I know I'm not ugly or anything," "I don't think you'd look at me and say I'm ugly," and so on.

It's an interesting contrast: People like to say that women are critical of one another, but the women I've spoken to (who, granted, are self-selected) have been very hesitant to suggest that another woman could be a word that's as ugly as, well, ugly. It suggests a sort of aggression, a sort of personality disorder in addition to any lack of physical graces. Plain, on the other hand, seems somehow kinder, even though, as Kate points out, it means that "you're not even fascinatingly strange looking." But it suggests someone who may have a strong moral character, someone whose features are assembled as one would expect.

I'm not sure what to make of why women are more eager to apply it to themselves as a contrast point of what they're not. I'm guessing that it's because by setting up a contrast of how they think they look, setting up an aggressive standard like ugly sounds less conceited than something more neutral like plain. Saying you're "not ugly" could mean that you conceive of yourself as being plain, or as being pretty or beautiful or striking or whatever—but it leaves it up to the listener to think on it, without being specific, which is interesting because ugly is a pretty specific word.

"Not plain" means that you acknowledge that you're—I dunno, decorated? The very notion of the word plain and how it's used in older books is more of someone who hasn't been graced with the features of what our society traditionally considered beautiful—that you haven't been "decorated" not by your own hand, but by the powers that be.



 Clearly a certain art director never read the book.

I'll be honest: I dislike the word too, for the reasons Kate enumerates, but honestly I'd rather be called plain than ugly. It fits into that whole notion of thinking of myself as low-key, leaving whatever beauty someone might find in me up to the other person, not my own actual features or what I've done with them. And let's not forget that there's a whole subsection of romance novels devoted to "plain" heroines. There's something deeply appealing about the notion that "plain" women, by virtue of their charm, charisma, kindness, vitality, or other virtues, can become beautiful—physically beautiful, not only full of what we refer to as "inner beauty." We want to champion that heroine, and we feel more virtuous in doing so, because we're all so attached to beauty that we feel as though we're automatically rooting for the underdog.

4 comments:

  1. I think I have a thing for plain looking chics. I often point out women I think are pretty and get a response of "really? i think she's kind of plain." There is something exciting about a blank canvas.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting...I hardly ever point out women I find beautiful and now I'm wondering if I have a "type"! I think that you're a creative sort and so you probably get more jazzed about potential instead of a finished look. I do think that the women I usually find to be quite beautiful aren't women who might be considered head-turners, but rather women who have strong bone structure or distinct features.

    (On a different note, I remember going out with a guy who was patting himself on the back for finding "sleeper hits"--women who were good-looking but didn't act like what his idea of a good-looking woman would act like--and while there's potential for that to maybe be nice, in actuality he was a creep who had very definite ideas of how "beautiful women" might or should act. We, however, are not creeps!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. The shape within the container may be a rounded very best, block compartment. Front side within the container has got brilliantly got replica tag heuer synthetic leather that will accessorize any beautiful layout. There is several edge flap budgets utilizing business logo scratched buckles. There's an easy synthetic leather shoulder joint bracelet utilizing omega replica sale in-depth stitching. Any shoulder joint bracelet comes with 7 centimeter lose. Any container is certainly wholly lined. Any mimic dimension happen to be: 16"L by 6 3/8"H x7 5/8"D. Any "Lady Dior" fashionable ebony designer purse is among the most most desired varieties with Dean jerrod Dior. The brilliantly in-depth, Young lady Dior container could capture the fancy of just about the most discerning way preferences. Any container disguise may be a sack pattern as well as being written during very soft, ebony lambskin synthetic leather by using a Dior personal bank stitch layout. It all consists of longer, silver-tone stringed shoulder joint bracelet together with tag heuer replica uk silver-tone apparatus. Any shoulder joint bracelet comes with 8 centimeter lose. The inside is certainly wholly lined. Any container is reached during Toscana. Any dimension happen to be: 9. 5"L by 6. 5"H by 3"W. The place for Dior was initially started during 1947, respected by just Marcel Boussac.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Got the right focus (on the picture). Nice.
    - clash of clans cheat

    ReplyDelete