Strong piece, but about the office-siren half--- You're careful to say the interiority belongs to the women wearing it, then the structural read sort of overrides that anyway, the funeral stays a funeral even when worn on purpose. I buy it for the apparatus, less for the people. Is there a version where reclamation actually changes the structure rather than just decorating it? Or is that exactly the move the essay is refusing?
Here's how I hold it. The wearer reclaiming the look, the irony, the choosing, that's real, and it's hers. I don't get to override it and I didn't mean to.
But the thing the look is the most beautiful version of is the assistant job getting styled gorgeously right as it leaves the building. She reclaims the image. The image is still the funeral. Both at once.
Can the reclamation touch the structure? I think only when it stops being about the outfit and starts being about the pay, who's named, who gets credited. The siren takes back the costume. She doesn't take back the job, because by then the job is the thing going. That's the part that reads as sad to me, not ironic.
So, yep, the essay refuses the hopeful version. But it's refusing it for the machine, not for her. I probably should've said that harder in the piece itself.
Strong piece, but about the office-siren half--- You're careful to say the interiority belongs to the women wearing it, then the structural read sort of overrides that anyway, the funeral stays a funeral even when worn on purpose. I buy it for the apparatus, less for the people. Is there a version where reclamation actually changes the structure rather than just decorating it? Or is that exactly the move the essay is refusing?
Yeah, this is the seam I'm least sure about.
Here's how I hold it. The wearer reclaiming the look, the irony, the choosing, that's real, and it's hers. I don't get to override it and I didn't mean to.
But the thing the look is the most beautiful version of is the assistant job getting styled gorgeously right as it leaves the building. She reclaims the image. The image is still the funeral. Both at once.
Can the reclamation touch the structure? I think only when it stops being about the outfit and starts being about the pay, who's named, who gets credited. The siren takes back the costume. She doesn't take back the job, because by then the job is the thing going. That's the part that reads as sad to me, not ironic.
So, yep, the essay refuses the hopeful version. But it's refusing it for the machine, not for her. I probably should've said that harder in the piece itself.