Degendering Fashion
12 By: Michaela Gonzalez; Staff Writer
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ashion: it is everywhere we look. It is how we politely function as a society/civilization and keep our body warm and protected from the outside world. To some people it may be to just avoid nakedness, but for others it is to express themselves and their highest self identity, while telling the story of both us and our history. Each sock, neckline, jewel, shawl, button, sleeve length, and texture can classify yourself into a specific group and movement. Your style can cultivate a progressive change, such as women starting to wear pants in the mid-19th century to demonstrate their desire to feel equal to men. Despite knowing the significance of a piece of clothing and style which can dictate various ideas, society norms have limited our personal self identity to our assigned gender from birth. Before the last few hundred years, men have been known to wear skirts and long dresses such as in ancient Greek and Roman times. But more recently, women have worn one thing and men have worn another. Society completely ignored the possibility of a person existing as neither a man or a woman. Anyone that went against this norm were instantly criminalized and discriminated against by the dominant culture, never intersecting, and never questioning why we were raised to dress one way solely based on our gender. Never questioning why our genders have one style to pertain to, and why we have to follow them. Why do I have to wear a dress because I was born a girl and have to exhibit femininity? If I identify as a boy and want to wear a blouse, why can’t I? These are the questions many designers, influencers, and brands have thought of, and have happily contradicted them. Many designers have fashioned articles of clothing that go against the “gender norm”. Harry Lambert famously dressed Harry Styles in an elaborate dress when he appeared for Vogue’s first male-solo cover. In the accompanying article, Styles stated, “Clothes are there to have fun and to play with.... I’ll go into shops sometimes, and I just find myself looking at women’s clothes thinking they’re amazing.... -anytime you are putting up barriers in your life, you’re just limiting yourself.” Another international artist breaking the same barriers are k-pop sensation BTS. They have been known for redefining the line of masculinity and femininity through their clothing, music expression, and performance techniques. One of their many non-traditional photoshoots include one in 2016 for Singles Magazine where they wore dresses, lace, and fishnets, which are considered “feminine”. Lastly, the creator of the #degenderfashion movement is writer, activist, and public speaker Alok V Menon. They are known to speak out against the limiting images of normalized masculinity and femininity. With this, they express their self-identity by dressing themselves with bright and unique pieces without the barriers of gender in mind, simply creating outfits for creativity and style. This movement is taking a step toward needed gender-neutrality that has been long overdue. Fashion is a source of the ultimate individual artistic self-expression, and degendering it will bring style to it’s highest potential. What we wear as we know it, can cultivate a progressive change.
If I identify as a boy and want to wear a blouse, why can’t I? S C H H A I N G By: Phoebe Piserchio; Staff Writer
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n September 3rd, 2021, Marvel Studios will be releasing Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, their franchise movie featuring an Asian American superhero. Actor Simu Liu, starring as Shang-Chi, is excited to share his movie with the world. After famously tweeting, “Hey @Marvel, great job with Cpt America and Thor. Now how about an Asian American hero?”, in 2014, it came to no one’s surprise or disappointment that Liu is now starring in this role. He and his other cast members including Crazy Rich Asian star Awkwafina and director Destin Daniel Cretton are stirring with excitement, ready for the long overdue Asian representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Because we’ve been celebrating a lot of firsts in our community — when ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ came out three years ago, we celebrated that as the first studio movie with a predominantly Asian cast in almost 25 years,” Liu says. “I’m looking forward to the moment where we no longer celebrate firsts. We’re celebrating seconds, and thirds, and fourths, and fifths. So I’ll take this moment for what it is… But I hope that there are many more just like it afterwards.” As fans’ excitement starts to grow nearer to the release date, more questions start being asked. Disney CEO Bob Chapek states that Shang Chi will be an “interesting experiment” with the film only being released in theaters, as opposed to also on their streaming service, Disney+. However, Simu Liu, being protective of his movie, eventually bounced back and tweeted in response, “We are not an experiment. We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. We are the celebration of culture and joy that will preserve after an embattled year. We are the surprise.” Liu later explained how he wanted to get the message across and show how fired up he is for the movie. He continued to say, “...It’s truly going to change the world.” Despite Simu Liu’s great effort in promoting his movie, the same cannot be said for Marvel Studios. Marvel fans are upset with the lack of promotion on their part for Shang Chi. Many say that the little advertisement is “racially motivated”. Unlike other recently released Marvel films including “Black Widow” and “What If…”, fans say Simu Liu is promoting his movie more than Marvel Studios themselves. “We, Asians, get our first ever Asian-led Marvel film and @marvel isn’t doing anything to promote it. Tweeting a poster isn’t enough…” (@widcwfilms on Twitter). The Asian community has been waiting for their representation, and when they finally get it, Marvel is doing the bare minimum to promote it. And while many fans are aware of this, there are others that simply don’t care. A select number of fans say the movie is “unimportant” and that they won’t watch it because it doesn’t have any of the “original Avengers.” Because of this negative energy, other fans on social media are doing their best to take matters into their own hands and promote the movie. As an Asian-American, it’s about time we see Asian representation in this popular film franchise, and I am looking forward to seeing much more to come.