This post is an initial response to a comment that was posted on one of our blog posts. By response i do not mean i am responding to the person who went out of their way (sadly) to post the comment, i mean it is an afterthought to how decor can possibly have a larger role to play than just an individualistic expression of aesthetics, by challenging expectations and the status quo of both past and present ways of living.
The comment was a reaction to us placing homo-erotic prints, taken from a modern calendar, which we had placed into a couple of small Carlo of Hollywood frames. I don't think i have ever actually seen a negative comment posted on a Blog that is dedicated to home decor, which, by definition is matter of ones own personal taste. I myself absolutely hate some things i've seen on retro blogs, in terms of how people restore (and often ruin!) perfectly lovely original furnishings/works of art, but would never ever consider posting any kind of negative response, what on earth would be the point? Therefore the comment, which i will not repeat, though short (but certainly not sweet) was obviously some kind of bigoted reaction to the queerness evoked by placing an openly homo-erotic print into an iconic 50's frame. Unfortunately i'm a bit new to blogging and accidentally deleted the post while using the mobile version of the site to remove the negative comment, i will certainly be re-posting them once they are up in our new flat!
There are aspects to the 'Rockabilly' or 'Retro-modern' lifestyle i both admire and dislike. First of all, there is not really much comment on WHY people do it, what implications it has for them and those around them, often people simply 'like the style'. which i'm sure is very often accurate for some people, but doesn't really scratch beneath the surface.
I have read often people desiring to return to 'a more innocent time', which infuriates me somewhat, as those times were anything but! To me that just says what one admires about the past century was our ability to deny certain injustices surrounding 20th Century western culture, that capitalistic aesthetics simply provides a welcome distraction to a troubling cascading wave of modern attitudes questioning long-held ideas over Being, Race and Sexuality. While the Rockabilly lifestyle is presented in publication as a fantastic 'alternative' lifestyle, little is commented on the regressive aspects of retro living. And nothing is commented on how a retro lifestyle could be Progressive according to who the person is living it.
The reactionary comment made me question, while home decor is marketed as being a way to 'make a statement' about yourself, does this often undermine what statement it makes about the way as a society we chose to live, the objects we chose to surround ourselves with? Could the way we chose to decorate be used as a tool for inverting, thereby making an example (a mockery even) of past and present living?
The gay male image in midcentury america, was defined by its subcultural mask of 'beefcake' aesthetics. Passing off what was essentially pornography in publications, pamphlets of nude young men displayed as prime examples of masculine physique, the homoerotic overtones were, through fairly obvious today, underlying; masked, containing only simple descriptions of the model: age, name, perhaps a short snippet of some hobby or leisure activity. But they were catalogues of men. The picture and description provided the reader with just enough information to form a mental picture, an image of flesh with a snippet of personality, just about enough to satisfy an erotic fantasy, which in real life was prohibited. It is interesting that this outlet of queer sexual discovery was made public through the use of aesthetics via the status quo of the ideal image of masculinity, the effeminacy of youth wrapped in swath of muscle and poise.
In contrast to this subculture aesthetics of homosexuality, the aesthetics of Race are prominent in the mainstream visual culture of mid-century design. 50's decor is a pastiche of ethic stereotypes from cultures ranging from African, Polynesian and Asian backgrounds, the virile bodies of 'ethnic' men and women are seen in both art and home furnishings as a prime example of western fascination with the ethnic Other. These are mixed with more primitive examples, often seen in figurine form, of ethnographic physical representations, a kind of 'venus hottentot' fascination which was a hangover from centuries of colonial visual representation. Some of these representations were undeniably born out a western ethnographic kind of stereotyping, which nowadays we would recognise as racist.
It is perhaps difficult to discern if the choice people made to decorate their houses with such objects was simply a status quo fascination of other cultures that became part of the mainstream aesthetics of the time. Or whether, through the dominance of the west via a growing capitalism and globalisation, in contrast with the rise of civil rights and changing attitudes towards race, this was a another way to sub-conciously continue a form of supremacy, via the collecting, displaying and (importantly) owning visual representations of racial stereotypes.
What i struggle with now, is how a home decorated in the present day with these objects, can cease to carry on this legacy of stereotyping and/or dominance. The first thing i would say, is that these objects were not made out of love. By this i don't mean the 'labour of love', but i mean the literal love that goes beyond mere fascination. A love that can feel a sense of empathy, admiration (perhaps involving physical and emotional love) with/for the other. Allowing a visual representational interplay with stereotypes from ALL cultures, including western stereotypes, could possibly be a route to distilling this abject 'fascination' to the ethnic other, and instead fulfilling an admiration and empathy, and on some level mockery for the western visual representation of all cultures.
Realising that our representations of 'ourselves' are just as ridiculous as the representation of the Other.
However, this is a thin line to walk on, it could easily be said that in retro living, it could be said that there is still some of that longing-for colonial mastery which lingers in the owning/collecting of such objects. But as previously stated, it is the attitude and person by whom they are displayed which is the key to opening up a questioning of these stereotypes. Queer ideas about homes often focus on the phenomenological aspects of the 'use' of objects in the living space (i.e. the table top a woman uses to prepare food for her family may be transformed into a writing desk), the method by which one uses an object can affect it's outgoing production, an object which was initially used to enslave through a certain kind of labour, can be transformed by altering its use.
To display a piece of Queer representation in a frame that would normally house a stereotypical Ethnic image, could be classed as a kind of queer phenomenological inversion. To display an image that would not be considered to be acceptable to put on display either in public or the 'private realm' (though one could argue that objects brought into the home often blur the line between public and private), is altering the intended use of the object, which can provoke a reaction to the way bodies, cultures and sexualities are represented in both past and present design.
Owning these objects without recognising their history, without thinking about who might of made them and why you have chosen to display them, is a continuation of this aesthetic denial. Living in the past for the sake of mere 'remembrance' (a longing-for) is not a healthy way to live.
Living a Rockabilly lifestyle is already quite Queer, but living in the past ethically certainly isn't. I would question how 'alternative' a retro lifestyle really is, i think it's only really alternative in the way you choose to live it, maybe there needs to be more representation of queers who choose to live an alternative lifestyle, or maybe there needs to be more thought into why anyone chooses to live in such a way from a more personal individual perspective, rather than focusing on mere aesthetics. Ultimately i'm interested in what impact choosing to live in such a way can help to provide insight into how we choose to live, our relationship to objects and to other people, cultures and sexualities, and this will perhaps allow us to ask the question, in the correlation between how we chose to live our lives privately and our attitudes towards Others in the past in relation to the present: Has anything really changed?
And if not, how can the way we chose to live affect the change that is needed.
