Post Punk Pixie

“Golly jeepers

Where’d you get those weepers?

Peepshow, creepshow

L.A. goth boy Leo at Helter Skelter, L.A., 1992. From the late ‘80s to early ‘90s the club was at several different locations, and always boasted the biggest and best clientele of goths, rivet heads and dark wavers. It was run by Michael Stewart and Bruce Perdew, the latter of whom created the magnificent skeletal and cadaver artwork for the club’s fliers, advertisements and murals. This photo was published in an article about Helter Skelter in Propaganda Magazine Issue No. 19/Fall 1992. Photo by Fred H. Berger, 1992. (Posted June 20 ’18)

Mainly because makeup itself, the generic concept, is an integral part of human identity. People have always done it (even Neanderthals used makeup) and we’re always going to keep doing it. The concept of decorating our faces/bodies with colored pigments is practically hardwired and on a deep level just plain FUN (look at how much kids love to get their faces painted at fairs and carnivals and so on). The concept is also totally gender neutral. In some societies, men traditionally do it more than women, for example. Using your own body as a canvas for art taps into a mystical, childlike sense of wonder. First you look one way, then… another! Like magic. 

But mainstream commercial makeup culture as it exists today is incredibly exploitative, misogynist, colonialist, colorist, and hurts women, especially poorer women and women who don’t fit the racial ideal as expressed by the mainstream corporate beauty industry. And a big part of that is pushing “natural” looks. All women are supposed to look “naturally” poreless, for example (which isn’t realistic or healthy) and are punished socially and often financially if we aren’t. Another example: contouring is supposed to accentuate the “natural” lines of your face but for me and a lot of other Asian women with moonfaces, it’s the furthest thing from natural! The further you are from the rich thin young lightskinned bigeyed straightsmallnosed highcheekboned look, the more weirdly artificial the word “natural” becomes. We’re supposed to sink all this time and money and resources into achieving this bullshit “natural” look until it all feels a bit like Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill. 

How to spot a dragon using an illusion spell

‘Capataz’ = ‘foreman’.