It's a Mask?

Sapatri, Orlan, Tenshigahara's characters and myself all deal with the issue of self identity. For Sapatri, during her childhood, she lived in a culture that was very restrictive towards women. She would go against the current whenever possible. She would wear American brand shoes, listen to punk rock and wear jeans. All to try and make herself stand out from the culture that she belonged to but didn't feel welcome in. That act is nothing new, trying to find yourself by distancing yourself from your culture is common. One can even say that you can't find yourself until your away from scociety.

Tenshigahara's characters were split over the issue of dress. The husband took a surprisingly Western stance with his mindset thinking that makeup was only for sexual appeal. The wife humbly disagreed and brought up the point of it being for humility and not vanity. This shows the natural sexual breakdown on dress that Orlan is avidly assaulting by her surgeries. Orlan is taking classical ideal beauty (created by men of the time) and actually bringing them into fruition. However, she's showing how unnatural they really are. She's trying to deconstruct the ideal women's physical appearance by saying it can't exist.

Myself, I live in a society that generally builds assumptions off of your looks. Though, I'm not attacking against a stereotype by my dress. I feel there is a time and place for every style of clothing. The clothes that someone wears in a certain situation can give you valid information about them. If someone went to a wedding in pajamas, you could get an impression of their personality. Though as with all things, you can't judge a book by it's covers. We can never truly understand someone only by their appearance. Humans are multilayered and it takes years to trully get to a persons core.