West Eye for the East...Uh...Girl

A couple of months ago I was skipping along, skippedy dee, skippedy dah, skippity tra-la-la-la and whilst undertaking this joyous activity I skipped right into the heart of Melbourne's CBD and for some reason was struck by a peculiar thought. I don't know where it came from, perhaps my pretentious external genius came running from the horizon and passed through me but I thought for some reason 'These asian international students could leave the pricetags hanging off their clothes and I wouldn't even blink.'

Perhaps it's because of the meticulous care with which the Asian students keep their clothes in 'store bought condition' but more likely it is because to me, for the most part these south east asian princessess exude all the personality of a mannequin.

Then I came across someone that articulated this phenomena in my casual reading of recent. (actually research for my next comic):

To her belongs all that is beautiful, even the word beauty itself. All that exists to beautify her. The sun shines only to burnish her skin and gild her hair; the wind blows only to whip up the colour in her cheeks; the sea strives to bathe her; flowers die gladly so that her skin may luxuriate in their essence. She is the crown of creation, the masterpiece. The depths of the sea are ransacked for pearl and coral to decorate her; the bowels of the earth are laid open that she might wear gold, sapphires, diamonds and rubies... Men risk their lives hunting hunting leopards for her coats, and crocodiles for her handbags and shoes. Millions of silk worms offer her their yellow labours; even the seamstresses roll whip lace by hand, so that she may be clad in the best that money can buy... my lady must therefore be the chief spender as well as the chief symbol of spending ability and monetary success.

Sounds like a sweet deal right?

For she is a doll: weeping, pouting or smiling, running or reclining, she is a doll... her essential quality is castratedness. She absolutely must be young, her body hairless, her flesh bouyant, and she must not have a sexual organ... Her expression must betray no hint of humour, curiosity or intelligence, although it may signify hauteur to an extent that is actually absurd, or smoldering lust, very feebly signified by drooping eyes and a sullen mouth (for the stereotype's lust equals irrational submission) or most commonly, vivacity and idiot happiness. Seeing that the world despoils itself for this creatures benefit, she must be happy; the entire structure would topple if she were not.

I can't be bothered quoting enough of this chapter of Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' and as such cannot do this superb piece of prose justice. But I knew reading it what is so unsettling about the smorgasboard of Asian eye-candy in Melbourne's CBD, the thing that doesn't sit right.
It's that it is like looking back into nostalgia for a past that really brilliant people fought so hard to cast off. The disturbing thing is that so many can interpret having men lay down and open their wallets to feed and adorn and chauffer you around to be worshipped by him and envied by others and in return you simply have to be a mute castrate doll, essentially a more visable rolex, louis vuitton handbag or any other prestigious accessory. It's scary how many people are conditioned to think thats a good deal.

I've been lucky to have Madoka as a host sister, because she wore what the fuck she wanted, did what the fuck she liked (usually sleeping) and was a nice warm loving human being who helped out the elderly and takes what she wants. If not for her, I'd perhaps think that there was something genetic about asian women that made them submissive and boring.

The advantages to me as a guy are obvious, and that is the easy explanation for the male populations contribution to reinforcing the stereotype. Accept eye-candy is an apt name, because it's like candy. If you come home every night to a plate of candy for dinner, you've fucked up. Nobody wants candy all the time, except they may think they want it all the time.

So too, Misaki, my one 'asian' girlfriend is the onlyone for a reason, and that is because she was actually a really interesting person. She talked a lot, and even in her oft hilarious engrish she was never put off from expressing her opinion on any subject, to anyone - one of which was 'I think Australian Girls dress agressively'

If an economist was analysing my type - despite the numerous accusations I recieved from my time dating Misaki that I had 'yellow fever' they would find the overwhelming evidence that I prefered bogans/bumpkins/nay even 'bush pigs'. None of which are flattering terms, though I oft got away with calling my various girlfriends these endearing pet names (an alternative theory may be that I didn't hence my singledom now).

But to Misaki commenting on the aggressiveness of white girls dress, I would have to reply 'she don't know shit' using hick grammer. But yes, this aggressiveness is one thing you could call it, aggressive can be one way to describe the opposite of 'passive' another being 'active' and using this term describe people is to be an 'activist'.

Because that's the 'West eye' component of this fashion tip, or as Jack Nicholson's character expresses in the 'Western-eye-sed' version of 'Infernal Affairs' known to the Oscars annals as 'The Departed' - Nicholson opens with the philosophical musing 'this is what the niggers don't understand, nobody gives it to you, you have to take it' the passive/active devide is their.

For sure, western feminin fashion sense has many of its own problems resultant from the derailing of the womens movement and the absolute conquest of the sexual revolution by people like Hugh Hefner. But there is some legacy there to the women's movement, their exists a minority of women that have sex primarily for their own pleasure (even though they are thrown in with women who have sex primarily to assuage their own insecurity known as 'sluts') and there are as many empowering t-shirt slogans that portray the wearer as a demanding lover (such as the one with arrows pointing up from the chest of the shirt and the phrase 'I'm up here' a shirt I was determined to buy and wear myself, but target stopped stocking it.) as there are the submissive slogans ('If you're rich I'm single' comes to mind, as well as the simpler 'princess').

And no I would not in general say that western women have reached the promised land expressed by Bryce in the simple exchange 'doesn't your girlfriend hate your goatee?' and Bryce responded 'Why do you think I give a shit?' which rather than being a chauvinistic statement I interpret more as Bryce's appearance is dictated by Bryce. The opposite notion is portrayed in Gillette ads which give the impression women will boycott sex with men if they are not clean shaven, a threat reassuringly enough men are courageous enough to ignore.

So really, I guess I'm saying that even though western and eastern feminine fashion have perhaps 90% of the ideology in common, to transform women into castrated dolls for parading about town, its in the 10% of difference that the trends need to flow West-to-East, not East-to-West.

The key difference being, western fashions can be active, they can be demanding, they can actually say something about the wearer that differentiates them. Like Claire's nose-stud, Chantelle's big pants, Eleanore's freckles, Shona's glasses, Sarah's dock-martin armyesque boots. And all these girls were still hot, charismatic, interesting, engaging, bossy, stubborn, demanding, funny, surprising, intelligent, idiotic, emotional, cold and rational, ambitious, quirky, biting... lets just call them human beings.

In short, the uniformity of south east asian fashion trends, and perhaps more disturbinlgy the monoculture of physiques, hair cuts, manicures, perfumery all carefully chosen to remove any hint of any individual trait that might single one out for social rejection says one thing poses one hopeful question to the viewer/experiencer -

'do you like me?'

Whereas fashion should say:

'This is who the fuck I am, deal with it.'

That's aggressive enough for me, I wouldn't even care how much such fashion cost.