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THE CUSTOMIZED BODY |
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BODY PAINTING & MAKE-UP
Charlie: I'm a dancer, an ex circus performer, and dare I say ... one hell of an exhibitionist Imagine the confusion of a group of Martians on a visit to earth. Touching down in the Mt. Hagen area of New Guinea they see a long line of women all with identical red, blue and white faces. Stopping off in the Amazon, they observe members of the Tchikrin tribe with red limbs and black torsos. In the Sudan, amongst the Nuba peoples they see men with bodies which are white on one side, black on the other and women with either red or yellow bodies. Setting down in New York's East Village they encounter a group of vibrantly multicoloured Punks and in London, a gathering of deathly white, vampiric Goths with huge, black, skull-like eyes and jet black lips. So what colour are human beings? Innately very dull creatures, human beings have always striven to and often succeeded at making themselves one of the most colourful and decorated of all species. In tribal and peasant societies this is particularly true of the males. Young Nuba men, for example, traditionally spent many hours a day -- every day -- applying their make-up in innovative, unique designs from head to toe -- while Nuba women simply slapped on the appropriate colour of their kinship group leaving them more time for their daily chores. This specific pattern is repeated throughout most traditional societies: as in the animal world, it is more often than not the males who are the exalted, elaborately decorated peacocks. Body painting (the world's first art form?) turns human skin into a three-dimensional canvas. The transitory nature of such decorations allowed our ancestors to become the first animal which could, unlike the leopard, change its spots. Aside from the aesthetic potential of such decorations, they also soon acquired a communicative f7unction -- their depiction of animals or seemingly abstract patterns, the choice of particular colours and so forth a sort of 'storyboard' of ancient myths and a schematic representation of tribal values, beliefs and organisation. By means of body painting (and, in time, the other body arts) humankind was set apart from the rest of the animal world, neighbouring tribes became visually distinct and individual personal differences within each tribe were 'colour coded' for instant identification. While the permanent body arts like tattooing, scarification and piercing have a special role to play in marking life's irreversible changes (like the moment a young man or woman becomes a fully fledged member of society) here-today-and-gone-tomorrow body painting also has its unique role to play. For example, the action of applying elaborate, time-consuming designs can serve to underline the significant of special ritual events or festivals -- driving home the point that such occasions are set apart from the everyday and the mundane. Also, the transitory nature of body painting makes it ideally suited to mark out the stages of personal development. Thus, amongst the already mentioned Nuba of the Sudan, particular age grades (groupings of those of a similar age) of males are immediately identifiable by the colours with which they paint their bodies (only the members of the older age grades, for example, being allowed the use of deep yellow or jet black). Finally, because such colours and patterns can be easily removed, they can be employed as 'warpaint' -- deliberately transforming the warrior temporarily into a terrifying and horrible being in order to strike fear in the heart of an enemy. Clothing -- whether for protection from the elements or for modesty -- is the natural enemy of body painting for obvious reasons. At the same time, however, clothing tends to focus attention on whatever parts of the body remain uncovered and these -- typically the face, hands and feet -- are often decorated with special care. This is certainly the case in our own society where eye make-up, powder and lipstick celebrate the feminine face while bright nail varnish may draw attention to the hands and feet. But only for women. While we share with many clothing-wearing societies in rendering huge parts of the body invisible, only our own society has so fully reversed the peacock principle to the extent that we define make-up as an exclusively feminine body decoration. (Interestingly, perhaps because of the pain involved, the permanent painting of the body -- that is, tattooing -- has tended to escape this woman only ban; in fact reversing the proportion of male and female involvement.) The assumption that only women can paint themselves wasn't, of course, always held in the West. Right up to the time of the French Revolution, the upperclass men of Europe, Britain and America delighted in painting and preening. It has been argued by J.C. Flugel lin The Psychology of Clothes that the subsequent 'Great Masculine Renunciation' of make-up and other adornments occurred as a response to the French Revolution -- a means by which the sober, respectable middle-class could distance itself from the frivolity and excess of the now suspect aristocracy. Whatever the reason, this extraordinary shift away from what must be considered a natural, universal human drive to decorate the body, has left the Western male in a uniquely dull, aesthetically frustrated, almost invisible position. And one which, as Western habits become the norm throughout the world, threatens the male peacock with extinction. Even women's make-up in the West has rarely achieved the level of creativity so often found amongst tribal peoples (or, for that matter, of the ancient Egyptians many thousands of years ago). This is because make-up in the West -- at least that of mainstream fashion -- has typically served a cosmetic rather than an artistic purpose. That is, as with our cosmetic surgery, (see Chapter 8) the ideal sought is often one of invisible enhancement; an improvement of a person's actual face so that it more perfectly emulates a current fashionable ideal of physical beauty. Thus lips and cheeks may be given a rosier glow, small eyes made to appear larger, a large nose made to appear smaller, the overall contours of the face invisibly sculpted and skin blemishes concealed. While it is true that the make-up and body paint of tribal peoples (with the exception of 'warpaint') are seen as aesthetically enhancing, the objective of invisibility is rarely if ever sought. Perhaps, the tribal person, by lifestyle inherently close to the environment, finds pleasure in a distancing from nature by means of deliberate artifice while we, living estranged from nature, seek the opposite effect. But there are exciting exceptions to this Western preoccupation with make-up as invisible enhancement. Particularly interesting in this regard are several youth-oriented subcultures which have emerged in recent decades. The psychedelic patterns and flowery designs of the Hippies' make-up (and, in some instances, body painting) were clearly intended to be seen as a form of art which used the body as a canvas. Glam Rockers like David Bowie or Marc Bolan (and a great many of their fans) further challenged traditional Western visual style -- in the case of Bowie's famous Aladdin Sane album cover, slashing his face with vibrant red and blue. The same can be said of the adventurous make-up of the Punks which was 'primitive' not only in its graphic aesthetics but also in its intent -- a celebration of body adornment as a creative art and a medium of visual experimentation. If only for a few brief moments in our history, these subcultures revived that ancient tradition of using paint to transform the human body into fantasy. The Hippies, the Glam Rockers and the Punks were also important in that they strove to overturn 'The Great Msculine Renunciation' of body adornment, deliberately ignoring that peculiar Western assumption tat only women can indulge in flamboyant decoration, male Hippies, Glams and Punks re-discovered their potential as peacocks. While these particular subcultural experiments in masculine adornment may have come and gone, new possibilities present themselves from what one would have thought was an unexpected quarter -- the football terraces. It is now commonplace to see football fans at particularly important matches with their faces brightly coloured in bold styles which are reminiscent of tribal male body artists like the Nuba of the Sudan. Significantly, these modern tribalists, aside from re-asserting their right to decoration, have also re-discove3red body painting''s ancient function as a marker of special occasions and a badge of group identity.
Cherie: My boyfriend and I had an evening at home alone last night and ... this is what happened. He was supposed to do my hand but he decided to practise on himself first so I got tired of waiting and did my own. What's that saying? Oh yes, you know the one about idle hands and the Devil. This stuff takes weeks to wash off.
Andrea: I can really transform myself. I'm small and you probably wouldn't notice me in a crowd if I was just in my everyday clothes but give me make-up and a reason to dress up and I become a different person ... quite outrageous really.
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