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.
So it’s either, “be hated by feminists” or, “have no confidence in my male sexuality.”
Hunh. Here I thought I confident in the one, and liked (even loved) by members of the other. Just goes to show what I don’t know. Apparently I needed a Misogynist to explain to me how miserable, and lacking in confidence I was.
My life is so much better now.
I think I slide through a loophole here – do I have to hand my card in for being one?
You are so right. Except not. You MRAs are such delicate flowers.
hellkell: that is the nub of it. Me, I am confident in my ways of sexual expression (because I can’t tell you what my, “sexuality” is, I’ll phrase it that way). If I am interested in someone, and there doesn’t seem a reason not to, I express it to them. If they aren’t interested, oh well.
The Delicate Flowers who come in here to complain about how “feminism is suppressing Teh Menz!” can’t seem to manage that. The thing is, there are women who like that (there are women who think Meller’s Gor Fantasies are fine). But these morons think all women should have to put up with them, all the time.
The jerk in the painting… nothing (but nothing) stops him from pursuing young blonde women, if that’s his bent. And, all things being equal, I don’t care if he likes young women (of whatever complexion). But all things aren’t equal in that picture.
Which is the PUA in a nutshell. They don’t want things to be equal.
It’s the MRM, in a nutshell. They don’t want things to be equal.
See Abnoy, and his “if you don’t let men treat woman as nothing but objects, the human race will die out”. If he’s right, and it requires treating people like things…. we ought to die out.
“But wait a minute, guys, the patriarchy DOES construct male sexuality as something that’s intertwined with violence (harassment and creep-ness fall under that umbrella). It’s absolutely no surprise that when you decry the violence part of it, MRAs think that you’re trying to deny them their entire sexuality. Without the violence, there is no patriarchal male sexuality, it just can’t stand on its legs that way.”
I get what you’re saying here, but MRAs fail to grasp that “societal norms condition you to understand your sexuality through a lens of violence but that’s not mandatory and it’s actually kind of bad” does not mean “your sexuality can only be violent”.
Your average man, even if he has no experience whatsoever with feminism or sociology, can understand that “this is the way things are” is followed by “because of social conditioning”. MRAs miss that entire second step; all they seem to hear is “this is how male sexuality is… and it’s bad.”
Seriously, I think we should teach sociology 101 in high school as a mandatory class.
Lovely job on the necklace, Kitteh! I love those long style necklaces, but I always found the length (lol!) of time it took to make them a bit frustrating. I hope you get many more compliments on it!!
And thanks everyone for the art history discussion, it’s been absolutely fascinating!
Wow, you guys aren’t just geekery geeks, you’re Victorian geeks as well *feels right at home*
Her hair being down leads me to suspect it’s a parent (or better yet, last living relative, if you want to bring up as much high dwama as possible) for whom she’s in mourning. Score one more for the PUA for hitting on a virgin (in fact, if she were a widow, she’d be considered “experienced” and therefor the picture would inspire far less audience outrage). And I’d judge her social status/income demographic on the carriage class and the fact she’s traveling alone, not on her duds: the latter (especially for non-adults) were often rented rather than shelled-out-for by the lower-middle classes; and in general women (especially unmarried) did *not* travel unattended, and those who could afford a ladies’ maid, nanny, etc would travel with them if there were no suitable family accompaniment.
I think the artist wrote in every possible hand-wringing vulnerability for his subject.
<Is not a Victorian expert, just plays one on the intertubes.
“the loss of whomever she’s mourning has changed her social status”
Very good point of possibility.
@JustACheeto and Cassandra, yes, people who are clearly emotionally vulnerable are particular targets of predators, so I’m not surprised you guys had to go through that : (
Is it just me, or does she look Teutonic, but he doesn’t? Also, am I misreading the painting, or is she painted as breaking the fourth wall?
@Joe
Dude, you can’t goo aroound insisting we have to say “C1A” and then accuse us of being poe-like. I mean,
@Kitteh’s
Love the necklace. Did you decide on the beading pattern as well?
I’ll go back and catch up in a second, but man, that painting is Amazing.
Hmm. 8 hours doesn’t seem too bad, Kitteh.
That is depressing. Pretty major statement about how much of an every day reality the threat of sexual assault is for women.
He looks german to me. He certainly doesn’t look “not-german”, so I don’t think that was the message.
Unless I missed it, no one seems to have commented on the disgruntled man behind Sleazy Buffoon in Bowtie. I like to think he’s about to say something like this:
“Aye, ya stupid git, leave the poor lass alone!”
To everyone observing that they have been harassed more when they are clearly in some way vulnerable I totally agree.
The last couple of times I’ve been harassed were when I was in some way clearly vulnerable.
Once was when I was on my way back from work, I was very tired and was feeling and looking quite ill. I was walking a lot slower than usual and had my arms folded across my chest.
Normally when I’m walking on the street I walk fast, my gaze ahead but not at a level where I’d accidently catch someones eyes, I swing my arms as I walk and I have my “purposeful” face on. Whenever I am not walking and acting like this I am far more likely to be harassed.
The other time recently was when I walking home from the tube station at about 11 at night, it was obviously dark but it was on a main road,well lit and while there weren’t loads of people about there were other pedestrians. But basically, there were three guys walking down the pavement in the opposite direction (ie. towards me) to me and they were spread out so they took up the whole pavement. I would have to walk between them when our paths crossed which obviously as a woman on my own at night I am not going to do as it makes it easy to grab me or block my path or whatever. So what I do is step off the pavement into the gutter to walk past them.
They notice this and they can clearly see that I have assessed them as a potential threat and ma trying to avoid them. Since I’m in the gutter to avoid cars the one walking closest to the edge is still quite close as we pass and as we do so he leans over close to me and says “Hey gorgeous” in that gross leery voice with a big nasty grin on his face.
He was quite clearly not looking to compliment me but to intimidate me, he didn’t even look at me until I very obviously moved out of their way.
He could see that I was made nervous by him and was trying to unnerve me even more.
If I’d just marched straight through them with my arms swinging then they might just have ignored me, but I took the decision to avoid doing so and this guy went out of his way to make an already vulnerable feeling woman feel MORE vulnerable.
I wasn’t actually that freaked out but many people would have been and reasonably so.
@Kittehs, “On the Brink” is pretty creepy, as well.
@hrovitnir
I’m inclined to agree.
Thank you all for an amazing thread of analysis, I think I just learned a ridiculous amount.
What a stark painting, (and a great tumblr.)
As for “peacocking”, LOL, we call them “haircuts”, you learn to ferret it out after a point from someone who dresses unconventionally because they’re really like that. But I suppose that doesn’t matter to these PUA’s because there will be someone newer who hasn’t figured that out yet.(or may be a girl “haircut” herself.)
Interesting comment on breaking the fourth wall. Yes, the girl does seem to be appealing to the audience for assistance, or at least sympathy.
I personally couldn’t have told from the costuming the location of the scene, but I’m surprised there isn’t a train geek here who knows their UK from Continental train details enough to place it. Also, I know Britain was king when it came to enforced mourning, followed by the US, but I don’t know how far the rest of Europe took it it that time?
Thank you for the extra necklace compliments, folks! 🙂
I didn’t choose the beads themselves. This was a repair job; the necklace was strung and snapped, so I chose to use links instead to repair it, mainly because they’re stronger.
heathenbee – I would have assumed the scene was in England if I hadn’t seen the artist’s signature on the crate in the foreground.
RomanCandle:
Cobblers. I’m a heterosexual man who’s extremely confident in his sexuality. So confident, in fact, that I never feel the need to express it on random strangers in public places, because I’ve never had any problem finding entirely willing partners. How about you?
As for the location of the picture, it’s fairly obviously central Europe, most likely Germany. The biggest clues, besides the painter’s name, are the fact that ‘Weimar’ is visible on the packing case in the foreground (far right), and I imagine you wouldn’t have seen too many fur hats of the kind sported by the other male passenger in Britain, because the climate wouldn’t have demanded them.
It seems that ritualized mourning pops up randomly in some cultures.
Pre-industrial Finland had a tradition of “weeper women”, highly talented individuals who would sing lamenting songs at village funerals while crying theatrically. These shows would go on for hours and the other members of community were expected to be rather stoic in their expression of sorrow.
(This is my vague recollection from descriptions of a long dead tradition.)
Kitteh (and I finally found your necklace, nice job! what are the origins of the beads themselves?), I assumed Britain even after seeing the signature. My Mom is from Eastern Europe, I just showed her the painting and asked where *she’d* place it, she said England. I asked if it looked EE and she thought not.
Being able to read the signature etc would be easier if I had a bigger screen and new glasses >.<
AHHHHHHHHH!
http://arbitrarypropaganda.tumblr.com/post/39975877211/freaky-headless-portraits-made-with
God I love that era. So. So. Much.
Pecunium — “Hunh. Here I thought I confident in the one, and liked (even loved) by members of the other. Just goes to show what I don’t know. Apparently I needed a Misogynist to explain to me how miserable, and lacking in confidence I was.”
Well I like you at least, can’t speak for anyone else though.
“See Abnoy, and his “if you don’t let men treat woman as nothing but objects, the human race will die out”. If he’s right, and it requires treating people like things…. we ought to die out.”
Join me in the misanthrope corner? I get called a misanthrope whenever I say similar.
Oh and thank you on placing the location, that’d certainly explain the “but where’s the veil?” thing. I was thinking Scotland on the hat, because it gets cold up there, but Europe makes more sense.
heathenbee — yeah, the point seems to be that she’s vulnerable, and he’s incredibly crass for trying to take advantage of that.
Human females 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”.