I ran across this remarkable painting, titled “The Irritating Gentleman,” on Sheltered and Safe From Sorrow, a blog devoted to Victorian mourning rituals and other creepiness from that period. The gentleman in question seems to be a Victorian era Pickup Artist in action. He’s even peacocking, Mystery style, with that bow tie and stupid hat and even a non-ironic handlebar moustache. Probably the only thing keeping him from wearing aviator goggles is the fact that airplanes haven’t yet been invented.
What makes it all the worse is that the PUA’s target is clearly in mourning. As the blogger behind rawr I’m a tumblr notes:
She’s wearing all black in 1874. Black gloves, hat, cloak, and dress. In public. The whole nine yards. That’s not a fashion choice or a gothic thing. Back then when people wore all black like that, they were in mourning for someone who died. No one did mourning like the Victorians, that shit was an art form to them.
Someone in her family has died—she could even be a young widow. No one’s accompanying her either. With the carpet bag? She’s traveling alone while still in deep mourning. Look at the closeup. She’s got tears in her eyes. She is upset, devastated in a way that one is only when someone has died. And the guy’s still bothering her, like her problems are flippant bullshit and she needs to just smile or pay attention to him because ladies are supposed to be pleasing for men no matter what shit they’re going through. That’s not a look of “what an ass.” That’s a look of devastation that even in her pain, she’s expected to give people like him focus. She’s not mad. She’s hurt. And to add insult to injury? Everyone would be able to tell. It was a clear sign and still is in ways that someone is mourning, to dress in black crepe like that. He would know why she’s wearing all black, and he’s still demanding her attention.
What an insufferable dick.
Yep.
And a redheaded Ged? Ugh.
Also, is that dark stuff in the background supposed to be the cave ceiling, and are the pillars supposed to be holding it up? Because that’s definitely not what’s happening as drawn.
“…Cuz feminists do dislike confidence men. It is known.”
Lol, confident men, confidence men…con men…typo or commentary claiming feminists see confident men as con men?!
“Human (men) are naturally attracted to human females when they are showing their softer side, especially when they are crying (as someone once observed, a womym’s tears are her secret weapon) It’s not always neccessarily predatory, as oftentimes the male has the instinctive urge to chivalrously console and comfort and even cuddle the female, to whom he feels kindly predisposed. It’s what the Japanese call “moe”.”
Wow. Gross. Why spell women womym? Is that to underscore our otherness?
And Merv rhymes with perv.
I bet most of the regulars here have seen this vintage absinthe ad.
http://rlv.zcache.com/absinthe_vintage_french_ad_postcard-p239851530346946039baanr_400.jpg
It doesn’t necessarily have the same exact vibe as that beautiful painting, but check out the man; the jutting jaw and beady, yet focused eyes.
That’s how I remember it – notably, the one of those who moves to Gont is known as the White Lady of Gont.
It did strike me as slightly odd that, IIRC, the Tombs of Atuan are in a hot, desert-like region – it read like the Middle East to me – and I’d tend to imagine the inhabitants of such places looking, well, Middle Eastern in skin tone; yet apparently they’re superpale.
Is this the first thread Merv has pooped on? I am officially giving up on catching up with all that went on while I was gone — except for Pierre, Pierre at the Huntington was great, and I’m glad to see him here in my neck of the woods.
RE: Argenti
I explained the situation to him, and he keeled on my shoulder laughing. So yes.
He’s pretty confident too, so I suppose I must be doing feminism wrong. I’m obviously supposed to want some harangued lapdog with no sense of self or boundaries. *eyeroll*
The Kargs. She mentions them in the article that was linked.
Is there a new Pierre? May I haz a linky plz?
The Left Hand of Darkness is honestly one of my favorite books ever and Ursula K. Le Guinn is one of my favourite authors and in my view the best and most accomplished Science Fiction author ever.
And I loved that article about the white-washing of her characters and her worlds, I always knew my lady Ursula was awesome and now it’s been proved.
D’oh! Merv = Dr. Pell. He’s banned again.
Yeah, just read that.
On that subject – and another thing she mentions, the sneaky writing so she lets you get into his skin before you realise it’s not a white one (if that’s your default assumption) – I remember coming back to the books fairly recently and keeping an eye out for the description, since i distinctly remembered Ged being Not White, and spotting it a good way into the book, fairly subtly included – and since I have a tendency to be a bit oblivious to subtle stuff, I was quite happy that I’d got the mental image of the character that way. I definitely have that tendency to assume characters are white, so not having got that all over one of the deliberate exceptions is probably a good thing. 😉
Wasn’t Jasper white? For some reason he sticks out in my mind as a White character :S For some reason I loved the whole series, but I don’t find myself rereading any of the books besides Wizard of Earthsea, which I must have read like 15-20 times by now loll
Damn, winkyface looks a bit too nonserious there for the tone I was intending.
LBT — lol! Must be doing feminism wrong though, so I guess I shouldn’t encourage you two! (Nawh, fuck that noise, enjoy!)
DID MERV SAY ANYTHING IMPORTANT? Do I have to go back and update his biography?
Is it wrong that I’m proud to have identified this as a Pell Incident?
IIRC Jasper had copper-coloured skin and black hair like most of the Archipelagans.
I think Serret, who Ged meets as a child and again on Osskil, has white skin and black hair. Ged’s childhood impression of her is that her white skin makes her ugly. When he sees her as an adult, he sees her as beautiful, but in a way contrasting with the young Lady of O who he saw at the feast and who Jasper went to serve rather than become a full wizard. “Serret” means silver according to Wiki.
katz — here and here.
Darn it, Argenti, you saw through his latest sock before we got him to go into meltdown!
And here — http://manboobz.com/2013/01/11/war-declared-on-misandric-pants/comment-page-5/#comment-244105
None of it is really up to Pell standards, but yeah, some interesting nonsense.
Kitteh — SORRY!!
😀 I suppose I shouldn’t really be into blood sports. Pell’s such a soft target, too.
…
whoo hoo hoo, doing photoshop pics instead of working is fun!
Meh, we didn’t really have long enough to play with him to get much. Like I’m not really sure what he’s going for with the “children of male feminists” thing (and I would love to know).
Yeah okay, that absinthe poster is downright creepy. I personally think that the woman is drinking with her head down to diguise the fact that she’s plotting out how to get away from him without causing a scene.
@Kitteh’s
Oh yeah. I had actually thought that Ged and Jasper were dark skinned (she uses the term copper IIRC), but White, until someone corrected me on that. Something about the way Gont is described makes me think Gaelic/Saxon village. I don’t know if that’s just because I’ve grown up steeped in European literature. Vetch and the people of the East Reaches, OTOH, always read as POC to me.