Here’s a term that you should familiarize yourself with:
“Nostalgie de la boue” means ascribing higher spiritual values to people and cultures considered “lower” than oneself, the romanticization of the faraway primitive which is also the equivalent of the lower class close to home.
Vanity Fair has a new photo-spread this month called DEPRESSION-CHIC where they dress up a bunch of celebs in rags and have them re-create iconic depression-era movie scenes. Ah, the austere fashion of poverty is so often wasted on the poor!
I’m not offended at many things (check my credit card statements and you’ll see the charges for some lewd overseas websites) but this kind of flip attitude about history really chaps my ass (coincidentally the name of my fav website!). Additionally, are we clean out of ideas? Is it impossible to create a new kind of glamour for the hard-working celebs of The Now Time? Why does Vanity Fair insist on dry-humping the asethtics of The Before time? Is it so hard to think of some way to capture the allure and persona of a celebrity? IS THIS A RECESSION OF IDEAS, PEOPLE?!
Also, this recession has moved from being some abstract financing idea to being a dreadful day-to-day reality so it’s unsurprising that it wheedles it’s way into all forms of culture. But into fashion spreads? How gross! And THE OKIES, really?! Like the skirts and overalls that reeked of oil, emaciated toddler spittle, and the desperation of the dust bowl is, like, a neat fashion motif for millionaires?! It’s grotesque to have movie stars swish around like the destitute. Oh, Stienbeck is probably steaming in the big cannery-row in the sky!
You know, I always thought when The End of Times came it would be full of murder cults and mystical shit happening. People getting mad and doing insanely cool stuff because like, everything’s going to end solet’s pull of this condom, napalm the walls, and staple these pancakes to roof cause FUCK TOMORROW! But the going idea seems to be FUCK TOMORROW AND HOORAY FOR YESTERDAY! Aww, you guys remember yesterday? When our biggest problem was racial segregation and the Germans? OMG, the GERMANS! How quaint! LOL @ Dresden!
Great piece and great points. Love the way you opened too. This is some pretty embarrassing stuff. What’s next, dressing celebs up as maimed, post-war, homeless Vietnam Veterans? I mean, hey, post-Iraq could definitwly have chic potential!
Oh the times…
This still isn’t the worst case of nostalgia-as-marketing I’ve seen. That would be the old Mercedes commercials from the 1990s that featured gorgeous black-and-white footage of fashionable 1930s types tooling around in sleek, gleaming Mercedes in 1930s Germany, all set to some treacly old standard about “falling in love again.” Fall in love with National Socialism all over again!
But, yeah, this photo shoot is Uberlame, as those 1930s Mercedes drivers would’ve said if they weren’t too busy looting Europe. Also, Vanity Fair is so idea bankrupt that they’re now stealing from Zoolander? Derelict!
This absurd to the point where even though the rational parts of my brain know that this spread you wrote about is real, the more wishy-washy parts (y’know, the parts that deal with feelings and morals and empathy and all that stupid bullshit) keep insisting that this is fake, a parody, something other than what it actually is. Jesus fucking christ.
Can you imagine the pitch on this?
Nice piece. I agree that celebrity millionaires should shy away from portraying the poverty stricken in shoots like these, especially during a period of countrywide financial crisis, unless there is a valiant purpose to doing so, i.e. bringing honest, concerned attention to the plights of a group of people that often go overlooked. There are a couple of actors I respect in these photos but most of them strike me as a bunch of deuches. I think these peeps should demonstrate a little self-control instead of looking for any old outlet to pimp themselves out and further their careers. As a result, like you note, the whole affair seems tacky and a bit self-indulgent. Look at James Marsden with his fucked up fake mustache and his thumb up. Blame it on his agent.
I know, you thought I was dead. Like a 70’s Kung Fu fighter I come flying through the scene. Yes, truly a man of mystery. Why oh why does it happen, how does it happen, when clearly I am the anti-multicultural David Duke’s ass grit answer to the superstars of snark. Well, I saw “Pretty in Pink” for the first time today and thought of the little Russian Jewish girl who reminds me of the perfect blend of Katie Morovsky (The Way We Were) and Anne Frank. She’s ballsy with some kind of vulnerability complex (I just made that shit up) all at the same time. Merry Christmas tootse. About this, well of course I have the meth head hillbilly point of view… and god knows… this place is starving for it. Everything smells a bit too much like fresh hotel flowers at the “W” and not enough like squirrel. Why oh why would I not be able to resist this Annie Lesbo-tits style art from the most elitist vag-centric magazine on earth? I think it’s because I’m not offended. Are they saying: “Look, even us special people that you all want to be like are having a tough time. Don’t lose your grace.” Are they saying that? They might be saying something more honest though… such as “Fuck you teabaggers we know you’re hurting the worst. Hope your daughter marries a minority!” In all advertising these days I notice that everything is smacked with minorities. (The only exception being some skin care creams. Go get Freud to figure that out?) Anyway, I want to be like the little old lady from the Wendy’s commercial. Where’s the goddamn blacks? (In lieu of where’s the beef) Are they saying: “hey rural white America, chin up, you’re used to this broke ass shit.” What do I see, the most clear psychological metaphor without the in-depth historical analysis? Someone creating people from Beverly Hills into hillbillies. It’s a slur people. It’s aimed directly at me, cuz’ god knows I was born to hang on the hillbilly cross forever and am the center of that universe. The thing is, I like a good slur. This one didn’t disappoint me. Imagine if I inverted it? Poor people car jacking people from Beverly Hills… oh wait, that’s called ghetto ass L.A.? Now you understand the absence of the Blacks. It would dredge up too much imagery of slavery…. and wonk simply disappears again, rattling on and on forever. No shit, Merry Christmas.
P.S. You’re right, Ducky is way cooler than Napoleon Dynamite.
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Thanks a lot for enjoying this beauty article with me.
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Thank you for composing “Public School Intelligentsia ? Blog Archive ? Nostalgia for the Mud: ?Scarjo, darling, would you mind rolling your shoulders back so we
can really see the yellow star pinned to your chest?
?”. Imight really be coming back for a great deal more reading and writing comments soon.
Thanks, Beatrice