So, I felt that it was necessary to sound off on a particular issue that bugs me every summer, and seeing as summer is now coming to a close, now is a great time to address it. I’m talking, of course, about being pale.
Yeah, I know. I’m sure everyone reads that and goes, “Oh come on, shut up and worry about some real issues, Michelle,” and I’m well-aware that there are indeed more important things in the world which I also concern myself with, but this is something that personally affects me and millions of others out there to at least some degree, so I feel entitled to write a bit about it.
Way back in times of lore (read: the 19th century), being pale was considered ideal. In fact, women would do anything they could to keep their skin as white as paper, from bleaching it to avoiding the sun at all costs to literally poisoning themselves to achieve a color now known today as “pasty”. All of this was in an effort to look more affluent, as the bourgeoisie did not have to do any sort of manual labor, and thus the paleness was a mark of a life free of any sort of work, and thus (ironically?) a sign of richness. This of course reflects that pale skin in most Western cultures has almost always been valued for a very good portion of history, as it also reflects the “purity” of the woman. Skin tones in Renaissance poetry were referred to as “alabaster”, and the poet would reflect on his love’s skin, pale as the moon. It has seemed, however, that the value of “pale” has changed since then.
As a quick study as to what is considered synonymous to pale by modern-day literary standards, I right-clicked on the word in my Word Document. From this, I found synonyms found by your friend and mine, Microsoft. They are as follows:
-light
-pastel
-soft
-whitish
-insipid
-watery
-wishy-washy
-dark (Antonym)
Wow. They just keep getting worse as they go along, don’t they? At first they sound girly, then lame, then…well, I guess my skin tone can now be described, using further synonyms, as dull, ashen, tame, spineless, squashy, and irresolute. The only good one that I found was radiance, but I suppose that can be associated with the way the sunlight reflects off of my skin and blinds passer-by at the beach.
Speaking of the beach, that brings me to my next reason for being angry at the treatment of pale in the twenty-first century. God forbid I actually go out in public, let alone go to a beach without a golden hue. On a spring break trip to Florida a few years ago, first I found all of the searing stares amusing, but after hours worth of them, they really started to get on my nerves. But, it of course only got worse from there because I then brought out the Coppertone, which really seemed to push people over the edge. “Being offensively white isn’t enough!” they’d exclaim to themselves. “Now she insists on being whiter!” Yes, after first offending every single person around me with my flashing whiteness, I then go on to affront the rest by daring to put on SPF-45 – the horror! I might as well be killing puppies, apparently, as everyone openly gawks at me when I do so. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that not wanting to look like a leather purse when I’m 40 was a criminal offense – I’ll make sure next time to let my skin fry to an ever-attractive tomato red and ensure that I won’t be able to sleep comfortably for the next two weeks. Because oh yeah, that’s right, I don’t tan, either.
Now, it’s one thing to have an isolated incident (read: every time I go out with skin exposed in the summer), but it starts to get downright infuriating upon reading about it in the media. In fact, today I was perusing AOL today, and found every college kid’s jackpot of a photo gallery: Celebs Without Makeup! I eagerly clicked on the link, getting ready to openly guffaw and feel just a little bit better about myself, when I was affronted with the appalling commentary of the so-called “journalist” who wrote the article (what kind of article is a photo gallery with snippy comments? Oh well, that’s another time…). Not only does she degrade every single woman on there, because it was, of course, all women, but she makes a point to tell almost every single one to stop looking so pale. She tells each of these women that they should know better than to go out in public like that, they will frighten onlookers, or that, in the case of Nicole Kidman, their natural looks are what drove their husband to divorce them.
Allow me a brief moment of anger: What a bitch.
Anyway, to me, most of these women looked perfectly fine. I noticed that many of them were indeed rather pale, and I was happy to see that not everyone in the world was tan. However, commentary aside, I was also upset to see that yes, many of them were quite pale, but not a single one of them allowed that to show anywhere near the red carpet. There are a few exceptions, including the lovely and talented Drew Barrymore and again, Nicole Kidman, but for the most part, it is profusely frowned upon. Why is this? Why are those of us who happen to have very light skin told that we should go tanning, or use self-tanner, or go outside?
Yes, we are aware that it can be unflattering. Any blemishes, acne, veins, or food that gets on our faces are readily available for public viewing – I’m sure anyone who does not tan well can attest to that.
Yes, we are aware that it can look unhealthy. Caucasian people in hospitals generally look like ghosts, and paler skin is associated with illness, and in the worst cases, death.
Yes, we are aware that people think we look “weird”. We tend to get used to being called pasty, gingers (in the case of those with red hair), and freaks, because it tends to make us stand out in a crowd. But, when has that been a bad thing?
So tell us something we don’t know.
Personally, I’m proud of my heritage. I’m Irish and German, and thus have inherited pale skin, which I am also proud of. However, to become an object of social ridicule because I don’t want to look like this:
in 30 years is asinine. Respect people, no matter what their skin color…even the gingers.
