George Greville, Adam Joseph, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (2007)
The subject of human beauty is tricky. My own standards of beauty run close to the ones in the “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” video; most of the time I make no effort to challenge these standards. But I know I’m not the only one. You’re lazy too – you like the girls in the video. I do – we all do – take the easy route when it comes to beauty. I rely on fashion magazines, videos like this one, wacky shows like “The America’s Next Top Model” to confirm that youthful, slim, big-eyed model types are what goes.
Girls are so pretty. Frankly, I don’t know how people can stand it with all these girls around. Sometimes walking around in my (soon-to-be-lame) hip neighbourhood I’m mentally floored by how pretty they are. It’s how I feel when watching this video. I look and look and I don’t know where or how to look any more. I’m downloading with my eyes, want my looking to figure out for me who the prettiest is – it’s too much all at once – but I keep getting “Download Error” message. They’re all fucking gorgeous.
In elementary school I had a classmate whom we called “Piggy” because of her weight, large cheeks and general unattractiveness. Piggy had the most beautiful eyes, unusually shaped, with a curtain of dark lashes and of the most intense green shade. I was fascinated by this hidden (behind the cliché coke-bottom glasses) feature. I remarked on it to other girls who insisted Piggy was a mess.
I’m embarrassed to admit that at the time I felt strangely generous telling other classmates that Piggy’s eyes were beautiful. Unlike Piggy I wasn’t called a name for my looks (okay, my large nose was a subject of a few heated insult exchanges). I think I was a total jerk by feeling generous and Piggy probably thought I was full of shit too. By the way, her real name was Agnes. She was tough; insisted she liked her nickname. She was smart and funny. She once said that she was the new incarnation of Marilyn Monroe, punished for her sins with ugliness. I laughed but felt defeated hearing this.
To detox from all that beauty, here’s the original “I Wanna Be Your Dog” song.
Iggy Pop, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (1979)
– Jowita Bydlowska
