The Oscars

[trooper6]

I haven't posted in a while...I've been a pretty busy. Crazy busy.

I only want to say the following. I watched the Oscars with the Gang (the school gang) last night. I don't know how I feel about Crash winning the Best Picture Oscar...since I haven't seen it yet. Brokeback was good, but I didn't think it was the most brilliant picture ever...something about it was off for me...I couldn't put my finger on it. But it is a fave picture of many of my pals, so I think I'll just move on.

But what was my annoyance? That most of the men who attended the Oscars were dressed badly. 1) I'm tired of the fact that many of them were wearing tuxedoes that were ill tailored...their jackets tended to be too tight, and their pants were too long. 2) I'm also tired of people wearing formal wear that looks like business wear. All the standard collars and ties, combined with tuxedo jackets that have standard lapels and pants without the side stripes. This is at least a black tie occasion (if not white tie looking at what the women are wearing). Where are bow ties? Where are the wing tip collars? Where is something formal? 3) There is a way of doing the casual thing in a way that looks stylish...it usually involves wearing an interesting colored shirt...there were sadly very few non-white shirts in attendance. Just lots of boring ill-fitting pseudo-tuxedos, with a four-in-hand knot under a standard collar. 4) There were very few bow ties in attendance and way too many of them were the pre-tied variety. A pre-tied bow tie...especially the sort I saw too often at Oscars...sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn't look very good.

Overall, I dislike that women are expected to go all out to look really good at fancy dress occasions, and the men are able to get away will looking like they spent no care at all on their appearance...or are only phoning their fashion in.

Why does this bother me? Because I think it's related to sexism where women are expected to be the objects of the male gaze, but men are subjects...and being subject means not calling attention to oneself. And secondly, as a man who does care about my appearance and trying to take care...I'm annoyed that in US standards this must automatically make me homosexual. Which feeds back into some weird homophobia that places gay men in a feminized position as the object of the male gaze. Maybe I should get a job in Europe after I get my PhD.

Comments

[ebenbrooks.livejournal.com]

"Maybe I should get a job in Europe after I get my PhD."

Noooooooo! Then I couldn't game with you any more!

Seriously, though, I agree with you. Sartorial statements in male fashion are lamentably few and far between. Not that I don't fall for the trap of pre-packaged fashion myself, but my ultimate desire is to have enough money to walk into a tailor's shop and tell them to go to town.

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

You may fall into the trap of pre-packaged fashion (though, I would dispute that, I think you have great individual style)...but you have fashion! I wonder if it is related to being in the SCA? How was Estrella, by the way? I heard that the King of the West learned Rapier fighting so he could lead his rapier fighters in battle...how cool is that?

And wouldn't it be great to be able to get lots of tailored clothing? A desire of mine as well. That and detacheable collars. Okay, no Europe.

[ebenbrooks.livejournal.com]

Don't know how much it's related to being in the SCA, but at least when I'm on stage, I try to have some style. The hat and vest thing is sort of my trademark.

Estrella was pretty darn good for me. It wasn't so great for avingail, but at least she knows now not to over-commit herself. I don't know about the King of the West, but it would be very cool if that story were true. It would also be a far cry from the days when the King of the West banned fencing in the kingdom for the length of his reign (thus prompting THL Thomas Bordeaux to write the hilariously funny satire "Ban the Fencers").

Detachable collars! Yes! And French cuffs! And silk knots! And hand-painted ties! And...and...and... oh, the list could go on and on...

Seriously off topic...

[efbq.livejournal.com]

Hi.

I was excited to see the Scooby post you had up earlier, and dissappointed that you took it down or filtered it. I'd never seen anyone else besides me try to use it to describe the dynamics of a particular RPG.

If you put it back up, please send me the URL, and I'll link to it from the Samples page.

Thanks so much.

Re: Seriously off topic...

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

Wow, how awesome that writer of that page actually posted in my journal. I've been a fan of that page for years. Just so you know, I took the post down because it was supposed to go on the Whispers campaign page (which is mostly friendslocked)--because I wanted the other players and the GM to check it out and see what they thought about my classifications. So I switched the post from my personal page to the Whispers page. We'll probably hash out the categorizations, then I'll let you know what we come up with.

By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I've freinded you.

Re: Seriously off topic...

[efbq.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all. I like what I've read in your journal, so I'll gladly friend you back.

Be forewarned, though. I friend and unfriend based on how much time my f-list takes to read. If I drop you at some point, please don't take it personally.

(BTW - I'm flattered that you like the page so much!)

Not so off topic

[efbq.livejournal.com]

If I had the build for it, and the budget for occasional cross dressing, I'd invest in a nice Victorian (or Edwardian) ensemble. Top hat, opera cape, morning coat, vest, ascot, pocket watch... the whole thing.

However, you're right. Modern day mens formal wear lacks a great deal.

Re: Not so off topic

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

Victorian & Edwardian ensembles...great eras for men's fasion. I quite like the 20s as well.

[digitalshawn.livejournal.com]

Ok so I agree with you on the Brokeback Mountain piece, but the thing that has always been most troubling for me is that the movie doesn't end in a neat tied bow. It carries forward as humans enivetably do. You see the sadness and the despair that Ennis faces, and you're left to wonder the same way he does about Jack Twist's fate. Was be really beaten to death or did he pass as his widow suggested.

That's my main gripe with Crash. Crash ties everything into neat little bows and yo feel better about racism after watching it. You see some pig feel a woman up on a traffic stop because he hates african americans and then later on you see her crying in his arms. It came around full circle where Brokeback did not.

I hated Morgan Freeman's Ascot, I felt terrible for Jake's poorly (or prepackaged) bow tie. But what the fuck was Charlize Theron wearing? Some sort of cloth parrot?

[trooper6.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was the lack of the nice resolution that was troubling me about the movie...I tend to like like sort of thing...there was something else about Brokeback that stops me from being able to being a screaming Brokeback fanboy...but for the life of me, I really can't say what it was. When I try to figure out what it was, all I can come with is that didn't move me emotionally as much as it did all my pals. For some reason it wasn't resonating with me emotionally. It was well crafted. The acting was good. The direction was good. It was well shot. I have lots of respect for the film...but somehow it left me wanting. It didn't frustrate me, it didn't devastate me, it didn't make me feel good, or feel bad...it didn't make me feel as much as it did my pals. It didn't me want analyse it for days and days afterwards...it didn't haunt me in any way...and a day after I'd seen it, it was gone from my body/mind/heart. Great movie, it certainly deserves all the accolades that everyone is heaping on it. But it left me cold. I wish it hadn't done. I wanted it to win the Oscars only on principal, not on merit. Ah well.

As for Crash...I'm just going to have to see it and see if I like it or if it annoys me...either one could happen.

As for the fashion...Morgan Freeman's Ascot was a poor choice. He's not sipping Mai-Tais on a boat...he is at the Oscars. If he wanted to rock the ascot, he needed a closed collar, a brocade vest, and a different coat. Jake's bow tie was bad...but not as bas as Morgan Freeman's ascot...and Larry McMurtry's awful outfit...as for Charlize Theron's parrot outfit? I just don't know what to say. I also don't know what to say about Jessica Alba wearing a dress that seemed to be the same shade as her skin.

[efbq.livejournal.com]

Still haven't seen BBM, but a friend described it as portraying the relationship very well, in a movie which didn't tell a compelling story or have any other interest.

Maybe that's your issue with it, too?

[fugue-maniac.livejournal.com]

My suggestion: everyone should be required to attend the Oscars in the nude! Or almost. Bowties required for all. :)