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magnolia-pollen · 4 months

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Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a matter of misplaced self-respect.

I had not been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. This failure could scarcely have been more predictable or less ambiguous (I simply did not have the grades), but I was unnerved by it; I had somehow thought myself a kind of academic Raskolnikov, curiously exempt from the cause-effect relationships that hampered others. Although the situation must have had even then the approximate tragic stature of Scott Fitzgerald's failure to become president of the Princeton Triangle Club, the day that I did not make Phi Beta Kappa nevertheless marked the end of something, and innocence may well be the word for it. I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honour, and the love of a good man (preferably a cross between Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and one of the Murchisons in a proxy fight); lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the nonplussed wonder of someone who has come across a vampire and found no garlands of garlic at hand.

Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The charms that work on others count for nothing in that devastatingly well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. With the desperate agility of a crooked faro dealer who spots Bat Masterson about to cut himself into the game, one shuffles flashily but in vain through one's marked cards—the kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which had involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed. The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others—who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation—which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, is something that people with courage can do without.

To do without self-respect, on the other hand, is to be an unwilling audience of one to an interminable home movie that documents one's failings, both real and imagined, with fresh footage spliced in for each screening. There’s the glass you broke in anger, there's the hurt on X's face; watch now, this next scene, the night Y came back from Houston, see how you muff this one. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commission and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously un- comfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.

To protest that some fairly improbable people, some people who could not possibly respect themselves, seem to sleep easily enough is to miss the point entirely, as surely as those people miss it who think that self-respect has necessarily to do with not having safety pins in one's underwear. There is a common superstition that "self-respect" is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation. Although the careless, suicidal Julian English in Appointment in Samarra and the careless, incurably dishonest Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby seem equally improbable candidates for self-respect, Jordan Baker had it, Julian English did not. With that genius for accommodation more often seen in women than in men, Jordan took her own measure, made her own peace, avoided threats to that peace: "I hate careless people," she told Nick Carraway. "It takes two to make an accident."

Like Jordan Baker, people with self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named corespondent. If they choose to forego their work—say it is screenwriting—in favor of sitting around the Algonquin bar, they do not then wonder bitterly why the Hacketts, and not they, did Anne Frank.

In brief, people with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character, a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to other, more instantly negotiable virtues. The measure of its slipping prestige is that one tends to think of it only in connection with homely children and with United States senators who have been defeated, preferably in the primary, for re-election. Nonetheless, character—the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life—is the source from which self-respect springs.

Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts. It seemed to the nineteenth century admirable, but not remarkable, that Chinese Gordon put on a clean white suit and held Khartoum against the Mahdi; it did not seem unjust that the way to free land in California involved death and difficulty and dirt. In a diary kept during the winter of 1846, an emigrating twelve-year-old named Narcissa Cornwall noted coolly: "Father was busy reading and did not notice that the house was being filled with strange Indians until Mother spoke about it." Even lacking any clue as to what Mother said, one can scarcely fail to be impressed by the entire incident: the father reading, the Indians filing in, the mother choosing the words that would not alarm, the child duly recording the event and noting further that those particular Indians were not, "fortunately for us," hostile. Indians were simply part of the donnée.

In one guise or another, Indians always are. Again, it is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has its price. People who respect themselves are willing to accept the risk that the Indians will be hostile, that the venture will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not turn out to be one in which every day is a holiday because you’re married to me. They are willing to invest something of themselves; they may not play at all, but when they do play, they know the odds.

That kind of self-respect is a discipline, a habit of mind that can never be faked but can be developed, trained, coaxed forth. It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one's head in a Food Fair bag. There is a similar case for all the small disciplines, unimportant in themselves; imagine maintaining any kind of swoon, commiserative or carnal, in a cold shower.

But those small disciplines are valuable only insofar as they represent larger ones. To say that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton is not to say that Napoleon might have been saved by a crash program in cricket; to give formal dinners in the rain forest would be pointless did not the candlelight flickering on the liana call forth deeper, stronger disciplines, values instilled long before. It is a kind of ritual, helping us to remember who and what we are. In order to remember it, one must have known it.

To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which, for better or for worse, constitutes self-respect, is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gift for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course we will play Francesca to Paolo, Brett Ashley to Jake, Helen Keller to anyone's Annie Sullivan: no expectation is too misplaced, no rôle too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we can not but hold in contempt, we play rôles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the necessity of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.

It is the phenomenon sometimes called alienation from self. In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the spectre of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that one's sanity becomes an object of speculation among one's acquaintances. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves—there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

#joan didion #self respect #article #commonplace #words

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sheacouleecametoslay · 1 year

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Season 4 (2012)

Well, this season feels somewhat uncomfortable to watch in 2022 after everything that's been exposed about the winner. She should've been disqualified instead of Willam. I feel sick every time she appears on screen. And I've decided to ignore her in my judging. But if you ignore the stain she leaves on this season, this is a strong cast! Season 4 seems to be when Drag Race finally settled into the show that is today. I noticed a shift in the cast's vibes. The first 3 seasons were filled with these dry, toneless confessionals, but the personalities shined more this time. The production has improved somewhat too. There's now an open doorway for the queens to enter. The finale is now filmed in front of a live audience. And the bar was raised on runway looks last season. The Apocalyptic Couture design challenge, the first runway of the season, proved that. But there's still scenes of the contestants waking up in their hotel rooms. They still wear different outfits in confessional. And the "Cover Girl" transition starts differently than it does today. The challenges need some improvement too. I'm glad there's more variety. But the Snatch Game was a mess (Chad and Willam somewhat saved it). The RuPaul's albums adverts were kinda cringe. The Presidential Debate was PAINFUL... it's like none of them wanted to talk about politics. Sh*ron's partner in the Makeover challenge gave me the creeps. I wasn't a fan of the pregnant twist either. And the whole "Frenemies" episode felt very contrived to create more drama between Sh*ron and Jaremi (FKA Phi Phi O'Hara), and then they went through a pointless lip sync when the producers were going to remove Willam anyways. Their duet felt so awkward in that challenge too. Although the announcement of Willam's removal is one of the most shocking moments in the show's history. The prison sitcom was good though; mostly for Latrice's performance. And the wrestling challenge surprisingly turned out well? Maybe because I'm a wrestling fan, but I thought the trash talking and the moves were fun. Willam's team was definitely the sloppiest though, and I didn't like how they cut Chad's team's match short. The finale music video is SOOOO camp that I kinda love it. And the pride boats turned out better than I expected based on the concept. I don't think Willam should've won that though, especially when the judges read Milan for doing the same thing (making it about herself.) Oh great, Billy B is still occasionally filling in for Santino... I do not like Billy B. And once again someone is brought back at the Final 5 for no reason just to be eliminated in the same episode. Untucked had the iconic Lashauwn vs Jiggly fight, Jaremi telling Willam how much he disrespected her for breaking the rules, and a very heated Jaremi/Sh*ron fight at the final 4. The Jaremi/Sh*ron drama largely drove the season, reaching a boiling point with that "go back to party city where you belong" quote. Otherwise, Dida, Milan, Jiggly and Latrice gave great lip syncs. And the Shangela box fake out during the premiere made me laugh.

Queens Ranking: 13. Sh*ron N**dles Another problematic winner. Bye. 12. Alisa Summers I can't remember anything that she said or did on this season. Her first runway didn't look appealing anyways. 11. Madame LaQueer I'm noticing a trend of big girls being picked on in the early seasons. LaQueer was always picked last in team challenges and Kenya didn't respect her. But she defied expectations by winning a physical challenge with a bad ankle (even if her wrestling character wasn't my cup of tea). And she won a mini-challenge with Willam (I did like the blue die mugshots). This is a storyline I can get behind, but I just end up feeling indifferent about her? I'm not sure why. Her Platinum & Gold outfit was pretty bad. And she missed the mark in a couple of acting challenges. It probably wasn't fair to criticize her using Spanish, although her segment wasn't memorable anyway. In the end, she had no hope against Milan's OTT lip sync. 10. Kenya Michaels Kenya came in with a fierce attitude (that slow-mo entrance!) She was fun in the wrestling challenge and her Nicki Minaj look was good. But she had this weirdness in her acting performances. It worked in the album advert (even if I wasn't *that* crazy about it... it's just that almost everyone else sucked). She was overdoing it as the prison guard (the clapping!) And her Beyonce in Snatch Game was strange too. I don't know why she didn't like LaQueer either. And then she came back at the final 5 just to flop in the Makeover (with those unhappy faces) and give us THAT ill-fitting lip sync to Aretha Franklin. 9. The Princess Not just one, but two queens who were in the "top" in episode 1 ended up being early boots. The Princess's personality wasn't *that* memorable to me, but she had some solid looks. Her nautical theme was in the "top" for a reason (even if it's not in my top 3) and I liked the Platinum & Gold outfit. But it was the acting challenges where The Princess stumbled. She was almost invisible in the wrestling one. Then in the next episode, she went the opposite direction by taking on a lead role... which also fell flat. And just like LaQueer, she had no hope against Dida's energetic lip sync. 8. Dida Ritz Dida made it really far for someone was never in the top 3 in any challenge. Her entrance look is so bad it's now a meme. Her runways weren't much better. Her "Main Event" joke didn't land. Her pride boat shirt was not a good choice. Her chicken Dragazine cover was "blah" ("chicken... chicken... chicken") And her debate had no substance. But as far as RPDR cockroaches go, I didn't mind Dida sticking around. She's likeable enough, and both of her lip syncs were great. She was the only one on her team that did well in the prison sitcom as well, so there's that. Her ultimate downfall was being uncomfortable with politics. She felt out of place in that final 5 anyways - the other 4 are such big characters. 7. Milan Milan's storyline was about being oblivious. She took over as team captain when no one really asked her to... twice... in back-to-back episodes. She brought up her acting degree and proceeded to flop in the acting challenge. Her Diana Ross in Snatch Game was off. And then she went bonkers in the lip syncs for three consecutive episodes. She had some impressive moves, but her third lip sync felt tired. I liked her Janelle Monae look though, despite what the judges said. I also liked her Apocalyptic Couture and Platinum & Gold. And she was entertaining. She struck me as someone who followed her true self in the competition, regardless of what the judges wanted. Ultimately though, her pride boat looked amateur (especially the handwriting). 6. Jaremi Carey (FKA Phi Phi O'Hara) The most hated queen at the time. All that drama because he took credit for Sh*ron's character in that one challenge lol. Anyways, Jaremi had some of my favourite runways of Season 4. I thought the judges underrated his Apocalyptic Couture. I almost gave him the win for the pride boat. His Dragazine cover was the most effective. And I actually liked his Bitch Ball looks. But damn, Jaremi was ruthless on this season. He went off on people constantly; it's like he always had a problem with other people. Was it the edit? I don't know, because his tone sounded hateful. He also manipulated Jiggly into taking the Dragazine seriously and tried to get Latrice to sabotage Willam in the singing. But as a Survivor fan, dirty tactics don't bother me lol. His Lady Gaga in Snatch Game (even if he had the look down) and the Republican character in the debate were misfires though ("the help"... really?) His Latina character in the advert was cringe too. He certainly brought the drama though... 5. Chad Michaels She KILLED it as Cher in the Snatch Game. It's one of the best Snatch Game performances of all time. But she's not just a Cher impersonator; Chad is an experienced professional at doing drag. I'll never understand why the judges read her for being too professional and being old school. Like do they expect her to dress like a 20 year old? She seemed like a natural in the acting challenges too. Her wrestling character was good. I thought she should've won the albums advert. Her debate character wasn't fully in character though; she kept going "YELLOW. RED."; but she had the best inauguration runway that episode. Speaking of which, I think Chad had the best runways this season? There's the Apocalyptic Couture, the Florence Welch look, the leopard print as well. And I thought her Bitch Ball looks were good, aside from the daytime park one. 4. Jiggly Caliente Jiggly had this vulnerability while still carrying self-confidence at the same time? I was rooting for her, aside from her comment about how dating another drag queen is "disgusting". It seemed like she was dealing with a lot of past trauma though. She got emotional a few times on Untucked. And production were also such assholes for sending her that hotel letter. But I liked her poses on the runway. She was a great lip sync-er (until she was given a country song). And she carried her team during the wrestling challenge (even openly blaming The Princess for their flop). But the creative challenges really weren't her thing. Her baked potato Apocalyptic Couture was... something. The cape in the pride boat wasn't flattering either. And she looked sad in that Dragazine cover, where she was read for taking it serious instead of funny. It's clear the producers wanted her gone that round regardless though. 3. Willam Willam had this snooty, conceited, spoiled, Valley Girl-like persona. She even won the pride boat challenge by plastering her face all over it and then stepping out to show off her body. It's a win that I don't agree with, but it was such a Willam thing to do. And she constantly bragged about the TV shows she was on. The thing is though, Willam's attitude came off as an act. She's funny because there's a sense of self-awareness to it. I GAGGED at "Is the carpet comfortable?" She was quite obnoxious in that pride boat episode though. Still, her Jessica Simpson in Snatch Game was comical (they should've left the cardboard cut-out joke in). Her reads in confessionals weren't exactly wrong. And some of her runways looked expensive. The crying on stage had to be fake right? But of course Willam's most memorable moment was her shock removal. I fully believe that she wanted to get kicked off to be in another show - that sounds like her. Willam was just a complete troll, but in a fun way. 2. Lashauwn Beyond Probably my favourite early boot of this entire series? With quotes such as "Post apopalopic", "Badonk a donk donk a donk donk", "Bubblegum yum-yum", "And kikikikikikiki, NO!", and of course "THIS IS NOT RUPAUL'S BEST FRIENDS RACE"... Lashauwn really went OFF on Jiggly during that first Untucked. She had this lovable aura when she spoke (if that makes sense). And I loved her style on the runway and how she made everyday objects look fashionable - the globe hat, the bubblegum machine. But yeah, her performance in the wrestling challenge was lacking. 1. Latrice Royale Obvious #1 is obvious [2]. Latrice brought a warm presence. She had that distinctive laugh in the Werk Room. Her prison guard character is hilarious and iconic ("get those nuts away from my face!") It went with her backstory of spending time in prison herself (for drug possession, so nothing problematic). She made a good heel in the wrestling challenge. And she had the only funny line in the debate. She was clearly checked out at the end of Snatch Game though, and then she proceeded to scold the queens afterwards for their unprofessionalism (I mean, she wasn't wrong). Moreover, Latrice looked gorgeous in the pride boat. Her Red Carpet and Dressed to Impress looks are up there too. Her late-season runways weren't as good though, and I do think she was the worst in the Bitch Ball. But she also gave two soulful lip syncs towards the end... until she was screwed over by a country song like Jiggly. Favourite entrance: Lashauwn Beyond Challenge ranking: 1. Wrestling 💀 2. Apocalyptic Couture (Design) 3. Prison sitcom (Acting) 4. Pride boats (Design) 5. "Glamazon" Music Video 6. Bitch Ball 7. "Frenemies" duets (Singing) 8. Snatch Game 9. RuPaul's albums adverts 10. Dragazine covers 11. Presidential debate 12. "DILFs" Makeover Lip Sync ranking: 1. Dida Ritz vs The Princess ("This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)") 2. Dida Ritz vs Latrice Royal ("I've Got to Use My Imagination") 3. Kenya Michaels vs Milan ("Vogue") 4. Jaremi Carey vs Sh*ron N**dles ("It's Raining Men (The Sequel)") (double shantay worthy but also an unnecessary lip sync) 5. Kenya Michaels vs Latrice Royal ("(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman") 6. Madame LaQueer vs Milan ("Trouble") 7. Alisa Summers vs Jiggly Caliente ("Toxic") 8. Jiggly Caliente vs Milan ("Born This Way") 9. Top 3 Lip Sync ("Glamazon") 10. Chad Michaels vs Latrice Royal ("No One Else on Earth") 11. Lashauwn Beyond vs The Princess ("Bad Girls") 12. Jiggly Caliente vs Willam ("Mi Vida Loca") Season ranking so far: 4 > 2 > 3 > 1

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