i’ve written about selfies before (here, here and here) or, sorry—self portraiture. i think there’s so much juice in this topic, especially now that i just learned video-selfies are a thing. i follow a very beautiful 22 year old on instagram. she has long, long wavy blonde hair. she’s round and soft, not model skinny. she’s gorgeous. i have no motive for following her other than i enjoy seeing regular photos of this beautiful young woman. recently, she posted a very well edited and highly aestheticized video-selfie. she is in some beautiful green space, flowers everywhere. she set out a picnic blanket. the clips composed together are all about 2 seconds long. she found a big fat snail on a rose, she flips her hair, turns around and looks back at the camera over her coquettish shoulder. the caption reads “your new version of heaven.” the video has 15k likes. i have no complaints, no criticisms, no snide comments. i’m not in the women-admiring business to secretly hate them. for all of maybe 5 seconds in the video she has flower petals falling over her while she giggles. it’s so very montage-of-a-beautiful-woman-in-a-day-dream-you’re-having-at-the-hard-as-nails-coal-mine-autofactory-job. i was totally zoomed all the way out beyond the walls of the fantasy. i was suddenly hung up on the fact that this was something she built. set up, camera angles, multiple shots, editing, cleaning up. it’s like creating a little digital file that works like some magical portal. click the video, immediately enter the daydream of being with her on some unidentifiable location in the rural coastline of france. this escapism is riding on her youth and beauty. it does not take into account that in order to have this magic file, she has to do so much set up. instead of giggling with a husband, or even a group of slightly sapphic gal pals, she built an imaginary world of her own singularity. you can imagine creeping through the grass to watch her like humbert, or imagine you’re approaching her with more flowers and champagne like those audios on youtube of young men giving themselves sore throats so they can do girlfriend role playing in gruff tones. “i wanted to surprise you baby,” followed by some weird guttural growl.
i don’t know what i mean to say by this. i think chasing beauty is as worthwhile as anything else. beauty is as important and not without meaning.
one of my favorite self portraits is by stacy kranitz, and she is emulating christy from the book by catherine marshall in the portrait. in the photo, stacy is wearing a floor length floral dress, not an uncommon look for her, and she’s having sex with a man on top of a washing machine in the basement. i like this self portrait because there is no skirting of the edges. no switching out between “it’s only fantasy” and “this is who i really am,” depending on who is accusing you of one or the other. stacy kranitz could be any woman. the clothes don’t look out of place, she doesn’t look out of place. the title of the portrait is “this is me being someone else.” we don’t have to do all of this emotional heavy lifting of seeing through the dress up, and we don’t have to pretend we don’t like the character more than the person she really is.
Stacy Kranitz, Stacy as Christy, 2011