Let Them Be Messy

Being emotional is the most feminine thing someone can do. Now, this isn’t being said in an insecure “alpha male”-pilled misogynistic mommy issue-ridden man way, just in the way a girl admires being a girl. That crying doesn’t get you stares but comfort, and it could be under the circumstance that your life is like season one of Fleabag on a constant cycle or you’re just having really bad cramps –but to be fair, these things could be put in the same category. That rage isn’t just rage; it’s always something more. It’s not just passive-aggressive; it’s misunderstood because, honestly, who else would truly understand you? You’re the cool girl because that’s the title you’ve always known and will forever be given. Cool girl is hot, cool girl is game, and you’ll always bite your tongue to be seen as someone who can have a good time. And when it doesn’t matter anymore, the sadness consumes you: and you realize a year of rest and relaxation is exactly what you need. So what if you rot away in sheets and take copious amounts of sleeping pills from an unqualified yet certified therapist? What’s the problem with ordering clothes you don’t remember and boxes of takeout piling up on your countertops? No one understands what it’s like to be you, to be the paradigm of unrelenting social hierarchies and personal traumas stuffed into the “perfect” woman. Let’s face it: who has made the femininity of Black women and women of color known in the same way?

When they cry, each tear isn’t given its own limelight. Why are theirs so precious? Why are they more feminine? There are girls that cry like them, that yell like them, that laugh like them, that are disgusted like them. Their tears are all made from the same eyes and the same tear ducts. There’s a wish to be privileged enough to believe that it’s because no one heard them. But their cries are different, their sorrow incomparable. If anyone saw them cry in public, they wouldn’t be pitied or comforted. They’d be disregarded and seen as uncouth. They were never the cool girl; they were always too friendly or a bitch. They can’t prescribe themselves a year of self-diagnosed rest; otherwise, they’re just useless and probably “relying on the system.” Because what woman darker than blank paper is seen as a beautiful mess? as human?

This humanity that has been robbed from Black women and women of color has excluded them from being emotional in a socially acceptable way –or any way at all. The intentional misrepresentation of these women finds its start as far back as the early days of colonialism. Europe’s colonization of the Americas and its exploration of the East made room for cultural differences and misgivings of it. From that point forward, tellings of the women from these places have fetishized them and turned them into these exotic creatures who have no humanity. For Latin, Asian, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern women they’ve been mainly split into three categories: the submissive virgin, the feisty temptress, and the all-knowing kind savage. Their femininity is only seen as a means of pleasure or assistance to whoever perceives them. For Black women, this kind of dehumanization removes them from their femininity as well –a direct result of slavery: the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire; the mother, the seductress, and the aggressor. Through this, they have been seen as unattractive, hypersexual, aggressive, and masculine figures. They are stripped not only of their humanity but their femininity making them truly alien to being women. 

All of these negative stereotypes and representations are either still being perpetuated in today’s media or have taken on a new form. The most that films, tv shows, writing, news, and social media have done is try to make these dehumanizing stereotypes “progressive,” but even that is still retroactive. Latin women are still seen as feisty and exotic, like the actress Alexa Demie’s role as Maddy in Euphoria. Her character is shown as sexually liberated and understanding of her sexuality, but what Latin woman on screen hasn’t been demonstrated this way? Middle Eastern women that are Muslim and practice wearing the hijab, their representation is being seen as submissive and oppressed for wearing it, whether or not it was their choice to wear it, to begin with. So in TV shows like Elite, they have their only hijabi character Nadia remove it and abandon her beliefs to be seen as a “free,” and eventually hypersexual, woman. To some watching, this might be seen as progressive, and a step forward but is it really when it disrespects not only a religious practice but perpetuates negative stereotypes associated with it? Then for Black Women, their tears are seen, and their anger is felt, but only if it represents something other than themselves. Amandla Stenberg’s tears in The Hate You Give weren’t her own but of BLM, and the anger felt by Taraji P Henson in Hidden Figures wasn’t her own but of the blatant racism found in the 1960s. None of their tears, anger, or pain are their own; it’s everyone else’s. As for Asian women, they aren’t allowed to speak, and if they do, it’s only to be someone with a permanent temper. The characters Lucy Liu has played throughout her career have always pinned her as the latter; from her role as O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill to Alex Munday in Charlie’s Angels, she’s a sexual and dominating woman. None of these women have been granted the autonomy of existing as a person but only as parts of one.  

These women deserve to be women. To be as kind as a python and as cruel as a butterfly, to cry behind closed doors while knowing the walls are thin, to whisper lies to those with big mouths, to swear on their mother’s life that they would never do something terrible knowing they’ve already done it. These women are entitled to being more than what they’ve been told to be. They are entitled to their emotions and to their femininity. They are more than having to either be a provocative fantasy or a projected purity ideology. Each of their tears deserves the limelight and the roses, and the applause of an audience calling for an encore. Every meltdown should grant them concerned looks from others and a warm embrace. Movies and films should let them see a perverted version of themselves that can still be a healthy critique of who they are. Let them be feminine; let them be human; let them be women: let them be messy.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Melania Zilo

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Francesca Cella

ASSISTANT EIC: Sage Holaway

DIGITAL DIRECTOR: Anika Chhabra

DIGITAL ASSISTANTS: Lorenzo Biondo, Ali Tarnowsky, Joe Grassi

CONCEPT/WRITER: Alyssa Quarrie

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kimara Pretlow

STYLISTS: Aidan Rourke, Isabella Chan

MUAs: Kallyani Prakash, Sam Acello

Boca Raton