Flawed Beauty : Liz Taylor and Modern Feminism

Flawed Beauty : Liz Taylor and Modern Feminism

by A. Wicked

We are the liberal Internet. We RT, sign, share articles about Tea-Party Madness, homophobia, and Feminism. We shout for all that follow us that the world should be more equal, and that we are the forefront of that. But let me tell you something Internet, you have proven in the wake of Liz Taylor’s demise that all our progress was nothing more than surface simpering, and I am SO disappointed.

Elizabeth Taylor as an activist was the very form of what someone should want to be. She supported Gay friends through times when anyone knowing they where homosexual would have ruined their lives. She was what we should all strive to be, a straight woman who supported her friends in any way that she could, protecting the secrets they wanted to keep, and being a shoulder to cry on.

This is the reason she is a Gay Icon more than her physical beauty. She had sense of style, and what a friend of mine would call “Moxie”. She opened her mouth, she drank, she fought. When she struggled we saw it clear as day. She survived a childhood in Hollywood that could be best described as the “Asylum” where children (and adults) where given uppers to work, to keep trim, downers to control mania and get to sleep, and all working 16 hour days plus. Most people who survived the studio years continued with these bad habits, and it killed most of them far before their time.Elizabeth Taylor survived her Tragedies, which where too many to describe in one page, and often seemed to be too much for one person to handle, all in front of lights and a microscope.When she died, we saw none of this being talked about, even amongst ourselves. There where snide comments about her breakdowns, marriages, and substance problems, or inversely she was sanctified purely for her beauty, while secretly being slapped with the left hand for DARING to loose it.

Even Jerry Saltz the Art Critic wrote a side-ways article about Andy Warhol’s Portraits of Elizabeth Taylor and used words like “Gaudy”, “Campy”, and “Flawed Beauty”. I can’t possibly understand entirely what he meant, but I can agree that Liz Taylor was the icon of something different than the norm, just left of center.

Jerry Saltz on Andy Warhol’s Portraits of Liz

Here we are in the modern world, the world of the Internet. We talk feminism and alternatives to marriage, we tell girls that they can have different lives than their mothers if they so choose to craft them, we tell them they can be whatever they are… and yet here we stand in the dawn of the 21st century making an extraordinary woman’s life about how many time’s she’s been married, not only that but using it as an excuse to invalidate the entirety of her life.Never mind all she’s done kids, lets focus on the fact that she betrayed us by getting old and fat (because we know one is only valid forever thin and young), or was married eight times (OMG aren’t you just supposed to be married once?). This isn’t so much about Liz but about our ignorance about how very little we’ve changed as a people. It proves how many take up liberal talk as a form of speech but how very many lack it in actions and real support. I think its time for all of us to be a little more mindful of what we stick up for, and make sure not to let faux-hipster jaded smarmy talk reveal us for the shallow talkers we are.Ever,Your Auntie Wicked8 Lessons Millennial Women can learn from Elizabeth TaylorExcerpt from Diana Cary’s piece on the good old days before child labor legislation from Old Hollywood’s Tumblr Drug Related deaths of “Notable” People. Harvey Weinstein: Elizabeth Taylor Was AIDS’ Greatest Fighter