by Liz Phair
When I first arrive at the loft space, they parade me around and introduce me to everyone on the team. We thumb through a rack of clothes as the photographer explains her vision. She wants to do something provocative, something that will push people’s buttons. I see a lot of bondage gear. If a man had suggested we explore S&M narratives, my hackles would have risen immediately. But the sight of this heavily pregnant woman directing a staff of eight while wearing combat boots, tight leather pants, and a concert T-shirt that barely covers her enormous belly completely disarms me, and I agree to go along with her inspiration.
What I’m itching to say now, as I sit here getting cosmetic powder pressed into my pores, is that I’ve changed my mind. I’ve had a few minutes to think about it, and I want to back out. I’m afraid the pictures will look tacky, or like porn, or—worse—like I’m desperately trying to convince people I’m still sexy. I call my manager again, but he’s halfway to midtown and not answering his phone. If I want to stop this train, I’ll have to speak to the conductor myself.
But there’s something else that’s preventing me. The makeup artist, whose face is hovering mere inches from my own, is crying. Not just weeping but sobbing uncontrollably. She doesn’t make a sound, but she’s obviously overcome. It’s a drama that’s unfolding between the two of us, since no one else has noticed anything. Each time she sniffs, her eyes clear temporarily. Then the tears well up and spill out again, running down her cheeks, along with what’s left of her mascara.
She’s also wet, soaked through from the rain that’s started pouring down outside. Somebody sent her out to buy cigarettes and tape from Duane Reade, and when she got back she was in pieces. She hasn’t even bothered to dry off. Whatever upset her is so grave that her own comfort is inconsequential. My first impression of her was positive. She was polished and friendly, an elfin Goth girl of twenty-two or twenty-three whose own makeup was immaculately applied and flattering to her complexion.
I can’t imagine what has happened to her in the interim. I wonder if her boyfriend called to break up with her, or if she bumped into an ex on the street. Maybe someone in her family died. I ask her if she’s all right, and she brushes off the question. “Yes, I’m fine.” If we were anywhere besides New York City, I’d press her further. But residents of this crowded metropolis have to construct a sense of privacy out of thin air and determination, and it’s not always nicer to pry.
The tip of her tiny nose is red. She’s working kohl pigment into my lash line, smudging it repeatedly with a beveled brush. She has to support one arm with the other, because her diaphragm is heaving, making her hand wobble. She doesn’t have time to take a break and calm down. I showed up late, and we’re behind schedule. Maybe I’ve caused her to miss an appointment, I think. But she seemed happy and relaxed before she went out.
I run through scenarios in my mind. Maybe she’s broke, and she just found out she lost a job that she was counting on. Maybe she’s recently sober, and it’s all become too much for her. Maybe her dog got hit by a car, but she can’t leave work, because she’s broke and recently sober. Conjecture is starting to scramble my brain like eggs. I have to focus on my own situation and figure out a way to salvage this photo shoot without sapping the inspiration from my photographer.
“You look amazing.” The hairstylist comes over and stands behind my chair, running his fingers through my shag. I glance in the mirror. I do look remarkable. The makeup artist has given me beautiful red lips and a bold, dark eye. The stylist continues to play with my hair, coaxing it up into a tousled, windswept texture until I feel wild and daring to match. The makeup artist smiles for the first time since her breakdown. I can tell she’s proud of her creation. I don’t want to disappoint any of them. I rotate my head from side to side, pulling expressions that I would never normally try, watching myself disappear inside a character.
And, just like that, we’re on the move. They rush me over to wardrobe, where I strip behind a flimsy curtain—swapping my street clothes for the outfit they’ve selected. I’m so thin from all the work I’ve been doing that everything fits me like a glove. I emerge to gasps of delight. Despite my earlier qualms, even I get caught up in the fantasy. I’m a biker bitch. I’m Olivia Newton-John in Grease, after she turns bad at the end of the movie. I impulsively grab a red cowboy hat, and somebody lends me a cigarette. Now I’m Ponyboy from The Outsiders. It’s all a game of dress-up.
I step in front of the camera and strike saucy poses against the oilcloth backdrop. They’ve got good music playing, and we’re going wherever the moment takes us. The shots look incredible. Everybody leans over the photographer’s shoulder to admire her test prints. She lets me keep a few of the Polaroids. I feel uninhibited and free. But this journey has a destination, and the photographer has a road map for how to get us there. Each subsequent setup is more psychologically intense than the last, until we reach the boundary of my comfort zone. She wants me to make a bold statement about the subjugation of female power, to inhabit a role that makes me feel truly vulnerable. She wants me to embrace bondage. The hesitation in the room tells me that this fork in the road was anticipated. It’s up to me to say yes.
In the end, I do it for Magdalena. I put on a low-cut dress that accentuates my breasts. One of the assistants ties my arms behind my back, crisscrossing my body with a rope that he loops twice around my neck. My mouth is duct-taped. The only way I can communicate now is through my eyes. The makeup artist comes on set to smudge my eyeliner and administer glycerin drops to make it look like I’m crying. She stands in front of me, her cheeks dry as she makes mine wet. She’s had time to fix her own makeup, and she looks like a different person. She’s done a shimmery pastel look on herself, going for a completely different aesthetic.
That’s when it dawns on me that there was never any crisis. She got caught in the rain and her face came off; that’s all that happened. Her beauty-armor disintegrated, and without it she felt vulnerable and exposed—naked in a way she hadn’t chosen to be. I pity her, thinking how sad it is for such a bright and talented girl to place so much stock in her appearance. Which is hilarious, considering that I’m working my good angles while trussed up like a glitter-basted chicken, wearing designer clothing under tungsten halogen lights, surrounded by a team of professionals hired to make sure I look stunning, and I’m still not convinced that it’ll turn out all right.
She inspects my makeup one last time, touching up any blemishes. Then she looks directly into my eyes, checking to see if I’m okay in here, inside this abduction-victim disguise. It catches me off guard, because I can tell she’s looking at me; not the recording artist who came in for a photo shoot, not the businesswoman who’s worried about her marketing, but the fragile, insecure person I think I’m fooling everybody into not noticing. “You look great,” she whispers. I nod, since I can’t speak, but I know that she’ll be there if I need her, if it all gets too much for me, if I can’t leave because I need this spread in the magazine—along with a dozen other things that I rely on every day in order to feel in-control and safe.
We’re taking a risk by glamorizing suppression, but our gamble pays off. This shot of me bound and gagged will be chosen as the cover of the 1990s volume of Getty Images’ Decades of the Twentieth Century series, representing a whole wave of indie feminism. A strong female artist with a bold voice shown silenced and constrained. Only a woman could have taken this photograph, and maybe only a pregnant one would have conceived of it in the first place. In depicting the loss of freedom, the image calls attention to the bravery of the survivor. It’s the antithesis of my first album cover, in which my arms are flung apart, my mouth is open, I’m naked, natural, and lascivious. Oh, women are dolls! Let’s play with them.
By the time we’re done shooting, the rain has stopped. I get a round of applause, and everyone congratulates the photographer. It’s a wrap. The crew switches off the big studio lights, and the room is suddenly bathed in
the lavender shadows of a stormy afternoon. The show’s over, the illusion undone. I step out of my borrowed clothes feeling a little let down, like Cinderella back to sweeping the floors after dancing all night at the ball. I wander out into the kitchen and marvel at how quickly I’ve gone from being the star attraction to being somebody no one pays any attention to. The grips are busy packing up their equipment. The makeup artist zips up her bags.
It feels weird to hang out, now that everything is back to normal. I want to leave, but my limo is stuck in traffic down by the Battery, and it’s rush hour, so I’ll never be able to catch a cab. The photographer is sharing her favorite shots of the day with her husband, the two of them huddled together in a touching pose of intimacy. They’re looking at pictures of me, but the girl in those photographs is someone else, someone who’ll never exist in quite the same way again; an amalgam of everyone who collaborated on the shoot. That’s the hardest part about being your own product: It’s difficult to know what’s you and what isn’t.
I decide to head out. I’m not sure where I’ll go, but I can walk around the block if I have to. As soon as I push open the big industrial door and step out into the freshly cleansed air, I feel a weight lift from me. It’s six o’clock, and the streets are jammed. Financiers in business suits and office workers in silk blouses crowd the sidewalk, moving rapidly, with single-minded purpose. Horns, sirens, and shouts punctuate the city soundtrack. I fall in step with the foot traffic, traveling east. I can feel people glancing at me as we pass one another. Though no one would mistake me for a model, I walk a little taller, with a little more swagger, exhilarated to have a secret occupation that makes me interesting. I stop in at a bodega to buy some health bars and a bottle of water. The man at the register can’t take his eyes off me. I smile demurely, counting my change, feeling as gamine as Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.
As I’m leaving, I catch sight of myself in the mirror behind a display case. I look like a deranged zombie prostitute. My makeup, which was so striking in the photographs, is a frightening mess in natural daylight, caked on and settling into the creases. My eyeliner is smeared half an inch below my lashes. I’m horrified, the shame triggering old insecurities about my face.
When I was twelve, an age at which everyone else was starting to date, I had to wear glasses and braces. For a couple of years, I struggled with a persona that didn’t feel like my own. While other girls were moving ahead, I was stagnating. Once the braces came off and I got contacts, I wasted even more time trying to prove to myself that I was attractive. I’d pick out the hottest guy at a party and see if I could get him. We’d sneak off somewhere to fool around, but in the middle of it, I’d leave. Some of them called me a tease, but that wasn’t what I was doing. I was like a person suffering from OCD who keeps flipping on a light switch to make sure the electricity still works. And inside, I felt worse and worse. The mask I put on myself was far more distorting than a couple of pieces of metal and plastic.
That’s the thing they never tell you about looks. They matter; of course they do. But they weigh nothing compared to actions. You can change your looks easily if you have the right attitude, but bad patterns of behavior are like weeds: Once they take root, they are incredibly hard to eradicate.
I remember one photo shoot I did at the beginning of my career, maybe my first or second ever. Some newspaper in Chicago commissioned it and threw a party for themselves during the session. They laid me out on a fur carpet, wearing nothing but trousers and suspenders over my nipples, while anonymous guests—strangers—sipped cocktails and watched me from the periphery. It was disturbing, like the orgy scene in the film Eyes Wide Shut. I could hear the spectators commenting, but I couldn’t see them very well, because I was under bright lights while they were in the dim candlelit recesses of the studio.
Some of my lyrics are explicit, so I’m sure they expected me to dance around and be outrageous. But I couldn’t move. I just lay there, a photo-shoot virgin, dull eyed and mute. I was so freaked out that I retreated inside myself, disconnecting mentally from my surroundings. They were left with an empty shell of a person to work with. It was like bad sex. No one knew what to do about it. I didn’t know how to say no back then. I didn’t have a manager. I had no concept of what was normal for my profession.
The funny thing was, although I felt exploited and I hated it, it was the way my makeup looked that made me cry afterward. The makeup artist was the nicest, sweetest man, and my only ally in this upsetting situation, so I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his heavy bronzer, nude lips, and spidery fake eyelashes made me feel clownish and ashamed, like a dog wearing a cone collar or one of the last kids to be picked for a PE team. I kept thinking about how many people in the city were going to see me looking like this, and I was devastated.
What exactly are we evaluating when we think about our looks? Is it what’s actually there or how people respond to us that shapes our opinion of ourselves? Can you describe someone’s looks without picturing the way they move, the sound of their voice, or their personality? If you break it down into parts, just the physical attributes—brown hair, brown eyes, round face, short, fat, pigeon-toed—is that really how they look, or is it just shorthand for your much more nuanced and complex way of identifying them? Like skimming the title page and chapter names without reading the book. Even something as objective as a photograph shows the bias of whoever was holding the camera. And as a viewer, you add your own reaction to the image.
So what are looks? Seriously, what are they?
* * *
—
I’m sitting in the back of a convertible car. Five of us are crammed in here together, plus three in the front seat, squeezing sideways or balanced on one another’s laps. I remember somebody perched on the back of the vehicle like the grand marshal in a parade. It’s well past midnight, and the wide suburban streets are deserted. We’re driving under the speed limit, because we’re drinking. I look up at the deep maroon sky, crisscrossed by vaulted tree limbs. I can smell their new summer leaves on the wind.
We’re on our way home after a party. Everybody’s getting dropped off one by one, and no one wants to be the first to go. Whoever is driving is loosely following the directions of whoever’s next, but really, we’re just cruising. School is out, and our summer jobs haven’t started yet. The future feels infinite. Maybe we’ll go down to the lake later and drink beer and wine coolers. Maybe we’ll drive to Evanston and see what dive bars we can sneak into.
I don’t remember what year it is. Probably ’84 or ’85. I’m at least a junior in high school, and tonight I’m the property of a boy I’ve just started dating, the friend of my friend’s brother. We’ve all known each other since grade school, except for this one girl who’s sitting on my left. I don’t know how she got here, but she’s welcome.
We’re an uncomplicated group of revelers. Life is pretty good. There are the usual bummers—stuff like college applications, nagging parents, and breakups. But everybody’s family is more or less the same. This area is big on conformity. Dads commute downtown or fly off on business trips. Moms stay home and cook, clean, drink, decorate, and entertain. Everybody plays sports on the weekends. Our stories are largely interchangeable. Except when somebody goes and does something stupid, like tells the truth about themselves.
I would never. Not in a million. Total buzzkill.
“Come here.” My new boyfriend drapes his arm around my neck and pulls my face toward his. He’s pretty drunk. We kiss for a while, our tongues circling lazily. He tastes like the sweetness of beer. The smell of his cologne, mixed with the warm scent of his skin, makes me dizzy, crazily turned on. I snake a few fingers between the buttons of his oxford shirt to feel the novelty of his chest hair. I’m impressed with how strong his muscles are. He’s got a firm grip on my inner thigh, and he moves his hand higher, surreptitiously slipping it up under my skirt until the side of his index finger presses int
o the groove of my pussy. He starts rubbing it up and down, kissing me deeply. No one’s ever touched me like this before. My back arches involuntarily, and I push my breasts against him.
Suddenly, the car swerves, making our teeth click together. Somebody’s cigarette has fallen onto the upholstery, and we all hitch up out of our seats so the boys can swat it out. Sparks fly off the smoldering cherry as they chase it around the floorboard.
“What the fuck.” The driver pulls over. “Will you guys please be careful? Did it leave a burn?” Everybody settles back down as the car picks up speed again.
“Bro.” My friend’s brother hands my guy a beer from the mini-cooler in the front seat. They start complaining about their summer football-training schedule. I turn to the girl that nobody knows. She’s very pretty, with long, fair hair and cut-glass cheekbones. I don’t remember how she met us. All I know is that she needs a ride, so we’re giving her one. She looks young. She might only be a freshman.
“So, are you psyched for this summer?” I twist my earring in my ear, feeling like a sophisticated older sister.
“No,” she says nervously. It’s such a weird thing to say that it takes me a few seconds to process it. Everybody around here says “Are you psyched for” about everything, and the appropriate response is always “Totally.” You don’t have to mean it; it’s just an opening bid. But it’s literally the most common phrase spoken on the North Shore. I’m kind of sorry I started talking to her.
I can tell she wants me to ask her more, but I don’t say anything. Finally, she offers timidly, “Are you?”
