Funny Face & The Brainy/ Beauty Dichotomy

"Banish the Black, Burn the Blue, and Burry the Beige!" Because this film is all about PINK. And I don't just mean the colour, I mean the entire construct of femininity which is woven so deeply into our very understanding of the milky pastel off red hue we have come to label as "pink". Funny Face is one of my favourite movies, but today as I re-watched the Audrey Hepburn classic something hit me: This movie sucks. I say that for a simple reason, it sucks because it portrays the reality that "brainy" woman often face, and it perpetuates the idea that beauty is of the utmost importance. 

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A quick synopsis will reveal the dread this movie brings to my heart. When Fred Astaire's character (Dick Avery) is photographing for acclaimed fashion magazine Quality he stumbles upon brainy, plain, and peculiar Jo Stockton (Audrey Hepburn). Hepburn's character is completely disinterested in the world of fashion and beauty, instead she is enamoured by the Parisian intellectuals and the philosophy of the day- Empathicalism. When modelling opens up an opportunity for Jo to travel to Paris and meet the professor behind the philosophy she worships, Jo quickly takes it up. In paris she juggles her superficial duties of modelling with her desire to cultivate knowledge among the Parisian intellects. When finally confronted with the philosopher she idols a sad twist of affairs illustrates the reality many woman typecast as "brainy" face. The supposed enlightened intellectual has no care for Jo's genuine passion and interest in Empathicalism, to him, Hepburn's character is merely "a woman".  An object of sexual desire, not an esteemed or even worthy intellectual companion. She's cute and naive. To make matters worse Jo cultivates a romance with Astaire's character, who far more boldly acknowledges his own disdain at her intelligence. Dick Avery's love for Jo is calculated, he wants her only as she appears in his carefully curated photographs. Posed, frozen, and perfected, her flaws, her intellect, creativity, and curiosity are all glossed over by her wide eyes and pouty lips.


The movie isn't some anomaly, it's not as fictitious as it seems. I find there is always this dichotomy at work within peoples minds. Because I enjoy fashion, makeup, and beauty, I must therefor be unintelligent. On the flip side of that, those that know me purely through my academic channels find it hard to imagine that I, the keen girl who sits in the front row of all her seminars and never stops talking, can be into something as seemingly vain as fashion or pop-culture. This binary is extremely dangerous, and its taught to us (boys and girls) from an incredibly young age. Movies, like Funny Face, the media, and stereotypes breed these incredibly incomplete understandings of identity.


I often find myself confronted with these two seemingly opposing identities and I've struggled with trying to align myself clearly with one. What I have learned though, is that I am not simply academic or simply superficial. Woman are complex creatures, and our affinity for beauty or fashion is not some kind of comment on our intellect or self worth. Whether you fit perfectly within one, both, or none of the two labels prevalent throughout the film, you constitute a unique person and that is truly remarkable.

Have you ever juggled with these unrealistic notions?

XX,

F.