On 'Yellowjackets' & Appearance Anxiety
I'm tipsy and ready to RANT, baby. ("Yellowjackets" knowledge not necessary.)
Hello, I’m a couple glasses of Grandpa Chacha’s Home Style Wine deep and I need to rant re: an article I just read about “Yellowjackets” actresses Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty. Are you a fan of “Yellowjackets”? I’m a fan of “Yellowjackets,” and this article — well, two articles, really — made me angry enough to hunt down a high school girl in the Canadian wilderness for sport! (Just kidding.) (I would only do that for sustenance.) (If you’re not familiar with “Yellowjackets,” you may want to read the Wikipedia to understand these jokes.) (There’s light cannibalism.)
However, YOU NEED NOT BE FAMILIAR WITH THE SERIES TO RELATE TO THE FOLLOWING RANT! DON’T TURN BACK NOW! IN THE END, IT’S ALL ABOUT BEAUTY STANDARDS!
The only thing you need to know is that on the (brilliant, captivating, must-watch) show, Ricci and Hanratty both portray the character of Misty. Ricci is Adult Misty in 2021; Hanratty is Teenage Misty in 1996. Across time periods, Misty is an outsider, a nerd, a weirdo, a real sick little fuck. She has wide eyes and flawless skin and pouty lips but also curly hair and glasses, so the audience is supposed to believe she’s ugly. (Ah, the old curly-hair-and-glasses trick — a Princess Diaries classic.) To hammer it home, the character frequently refers to herself as “ugly.”
Ricci and Hanratty interviewed each other for Interview Magazine in November. It went like this:
RICCI: I found that the second I put the wig and glasses on, people actually treated me differently. Did you find that?
HANRATTY: Oh, definitely.
RICCI: I was dismissed, teased more. It was really fascinating.
HANRATTY: I don’t think we’ve talked about this, but I was seeing a therapist while I was in Canada, and that was something that we discussed. I was definitely treated differently when I was in hair and makeup and wardrobe.
RICCI: It was fascinating. I wanted to take it all off and be like, “No, you will not talk to me like that anymore.”
HANRATTY: I got more self-conscious, and my walk even changed a bit. I just felt like a bigger target, you know, as a person.
RICCI: It made me angrier.
Last week, Teen Vogue interviewed Hanratty and asked her to elaborate on the appearance anxiety she experienced while in costume. She said:
“I had a hard time with my anxiety onset. For the first time in my life I got on medication for my anxiety because it was getting so bad, and when you're dressed up and not looking like yourself and not being treated how you normally would it can affect you in not the best of ways. I become more self conscious when I'm in my Misty gear.”
I won’t elaborate on these statements too much because they speak for themselves vis-à-vis beauty standards, beauty culture, lookism, and appearance anxiety.
What I will say is this: BEAUTY CULTURE IS METAL HEALTH ISSUE! IT’S A WOMEN’S HEALTH ISSUE! IT’S A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE!
OK, fine, I do have more to say. Even in character, Ricci and Hanratty are the picture of societal beauty standards: white, thin, blonde, clear skin, all of it. The fact that wearing a curly wig and glasses at work necessitated therapy sessions and anxiety medication for Hanratty in real life points to the extreme privilege extended to “beautiful” people and the cascading levels of dehumanization experienced by less “beautiful” people (with “beautiful” being defined as the adherence to current appearance ideals dictated by society and not, like… actual beauty), which often go unnoticed. Because rarely does anyone get the identity-shaking experience of being attractive and beloved in the morning and average and ostracized in the afternoon. And then go on to talk about it in Interview Magazine.
Obviously, the appearance anxiety of two Hollywood actresses in costume represents AN INFINITELY TINY FUCKING FRACTION of the beauty-related mental and physical health issues experienced by others around the world, particularly people of color and other marginalized communities, on the daily. But still. What Ricci and Hanratty felt on set was real, and more importantly, it wasn’t a direct result of political or economic or structural or financial discrimination — it was social. (I mean, sure, social outcomes are influenced by political, economic, structural, and financial forces, but you know what I’m saying.) That makes it an excellent example, I think, of the harm that happens within in our own communities — and the power of reevaluating how we, as a collective of individual citizens, perpetuate beauty culture in seemingly innocuous interactions with our peers. (Seriously. Click the link for examples.)
Beauty culture conditions us to conflate beauty and worth. That conflation bleeds into our behavior. It affects the way we treat the people around us. It happens. We’re not bad, we’re brainwashed. But as I illustrated with a literal chart here, we have the ability to make beauty culture better.
It starts with honesty and reflection and awareness and intention and action and treating everyone we encounter as if they’re all equally worthy, spiritually gorgeous, cosmically hot human beings. Because they are! Even those freaks with curly hair and glasses.
"curly hair and glasses, so the audience is supposed to believe she’s ugly." WHOOPS MY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA HAS ENTERED THE CHAT. Fuck this trope, I cried hard at the princess diaries scene where they reveal a princess and her hair's been straightening and she has contacts. No wonder kids literally called me "Ugly girl" in elementary school. Thanks for bringing light to these issues because even though I have way more self confidence than I did as an awkward 5th grader I will never ever forget how it felt to be her.
The old curly hair and glasses + chartreuse filter trick. This piece had me laughing and crying. And also reading your essay on Khloe Kardashian, and this question: "What if we took all the time, money, and effort we invest in beauty culture and used it to divest from beauty culture, instead?" THIS is how I rewire my brain when I start to look up photos of fake boobs. It's so simple, I almost can't believe it. THANK YOU.