Making it up, again

What I listened to

I found two fun things on the BBC News this morning, one to read one to listen to. The video story I watched and listened to is "Male make-up: Korean men have started a beauty revolution".

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What it says

The video is mainly a young Korean man explaining why he makes how-to videos for young men who aspire to look like K-pop idols, with some comments on Korean society's traditional disapproval of men wearing makeup in public. 

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My response 

This wasn't really listening practice for English, because the speaking is all in Korean, with English subtitles, which makes it reading practice. But it was fun.

The closest I come to makeup these days is my chap stick, and that's colourless. Occasionally I think of getting a tinted one, but for years have stuck with the boring colourless one that does its job of protecting my lips. When I was younger, much younger, I used to be a bit more adventurous, adding the odd touch of subtle colour, and sometimes something more outrageous for a special night out. I sometimes even went to the extremes of rock stars like David Bowie or Queen. Sadly, I don't have any photographs of myself from those days of my youth.

As the video came to an end, the comments about traditional attitudes to men wearing makeup, and the obvious suspicion that only gay men would do that, made me think a bit. I'm not sure how true that is for my own society. Of course, men in Australia in the 1970s did not normally wear blush, mascara, or cheerful lipstick, but they certainly dyed their hair and I suspect used other beauty aids. Then I remembered scenes from historical movies and paintings: the men in these were often heavily made up, with powdered faces and painted lips. Perhaps it has always been common, and socially acceptable for hi-so type men to wear makeup?

My final thought just came to me: the wonderfully full on makeup of drag queens was an inspiration long before I was even born. I remember reading, for example, Quentin Crisp's autobiography The Naked Civil Servant (sadly,  not available for Kindle!), when I was in high school, and he was writing about his adventures in lipstick in London during the Second World War! And then there are the stunning examples in that great Aussie film Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
The opening scenes in the film, such as in this YouTube clip, were shot on location at one of the Sydney pubs I used to go to back in my days at university. I suspect that they might not be so glamorous these days, but I haven't been to check them out for decades.  Unlike the BBC's video, this one does practice listening in English.