Maybe he likes me back. Maybe he loves me the way I love him. 

(He’s chest-heaving, knee-slapping, laugh-out-loud guffaws, head splayed backward, pearly whites glistening. He’s cheeky grins, floppy, staticky hair, sticking straight up like a balloon-tousled mane. He’s dimples, my favorite bedhead, scuffed Jordan 1’s, diehard Swiftie. He’s stupid pick-up lines, persistent five-o’-clock shadow, ears that stick out a little, reused and reclaimed dad jokes. He’s skinny, thin frame, a smile wars have been fought over, head tilted and tongue sticking out just so when he’s thinking. I study him like a Monet. He’s my Mona Lisa.)

He contemplates my hazy, muddy brown eyes like they’re something beautiful. (I’m shifty eyed, habitual daydreamer, dances like the multiverse collapses today. I’m frizzy French braids, hawkish nose and gaze, too-wide grin, laughs with uvula showing. I’m journals filled with him and his smile – his smile! – , perfect messes, markers and gel pens and Sharpies left uncapped – my desk, used tissues, the covers of my notebooks, covered in his monogram – , trail mix and cold showers. I’m unhealthy obsessions with Led Zeppelin, plant mom of seven cacti, seven pairs of socks, seven glasses frames, seven empty bags of Ruffles and Lay’s potato. He thinks I’m beautiful. Am I beautiful?)

I want to be beautiful. 

(I’m acne, constellations of dots and bumps, scabs and whiteheads and blackheads. I’m toothpaste on pimples, soaping down my face, homemade remedies. I’m skincare videos at two am, zoning out into space, dirty fingernails stabbing at my skin, peeling off layers of discomfort and pain and insecurities. I’m obscene amounts of skincare products, flinching when someone’s eyes shift from my eyes to my forehead. I’m ‘holy grail products’, crying because he’ll never like me if I keep looking like a toad, warts and bulging eyes and dark circles left as battle scars from nights unslept, wallowing in self-hate and desolation. 

I’m fat. I’m too-thick thighs, sausage fingers, squishy forearms, neck rolls. I’m chipmunk cheeks, plump midriff, ‘built like a brick’. I’m non-existent jawlines, flabby fistfuls of flesh when I sit. I hate the two that comes after the one, the reminder that I’m 30 pounds heavier than my skinny white friends. I’m spurts of motivation and living off of apples and eating small meals then endless snacking and chips and soda and candy. I’m wrappers lining my mattress, in my dresser, on the top shelf of my closet, under the desk, inside my pillowcase, in my brother’s room. I’m not that fat. I don’t get to feel sorry for myself when my BMI says otherwise. That doesn’t mean I have to like myself very much.

I’m thick eyebrows, peach fuzz, Super Mario ‘stache, unseemly clumps of long, BLACK hairs in my nether regions. I’m back hair, hairy knuckles, hairy toes, fuzzy bust, gorilla girl. I’m spiky thighs, prickly knees, spiny calves.

I’m slits for eyes, flat nose, double chin, too-thick lips, receding hairline. I’m ugly smiles, awkward posture, long face, horseface. I’m tan skin, greasy T-zone, short neck, braceface. I’m flat, stringy hair, deep dimples, no assets. I’m overly peppy, too loud, dirty jokes, iPad kid humor. I’m tall and lanky, never knows what to say, egoistic and self-loathing. I’m weak chins, round nostrils, uncool, Asian, nerd, geek, rot in hell. I’m fantasies, drowning myself in romance and poking fun at other couples, love is ‘ew’.)

Maybe he’ll bike past my house like he does her’s, memorizing the minute details and the lace trimmings and the orchids lining the driveway. 

(His front yard is stamped with touch-football tournaments, sack races, ‘race ya to the mailbox’, impromptu soccer games, climbing trees. His house is cozy, erupting, overflowing, filled to the brim with love, joy, children, fun, shouts, laughter, giggles, ‘squee’! His lawn is littered with water bottles, Capri-Sun’s, deflated soccer balls, a pair of basketball socks, a knee brace, half a muffin, a bill. His garden is filled with wilted tulips, trampled by the races to the pool, rounds and rounds of tag, freeze tag, hide and seek tag, ‘tag, you’re it!’, stargazing outdoors, midnight games of manhunt of the summer. Arid summer days, his window’s locked and bolted. On breezy, dreamy, misty summer nights, his window remains flung open, inviting stargazing and deep breaths and reading on the bay window. He’s seen me out there. He’s never said anything.)

Would he like me better if I looked more like her? 

(She’s perfect, glossed lips, oversized tees, scrunchies in her coily hair. She’s Converse high tops, bandeaus, creamy strips of silky skin in the ravine between her cropped, cropped top and her wide-leg jeans. She’s dark, hair the color of midnight, eyes huge and searching and enough to get lost in. She’s luscious lips, glorious legs for days, pearly whites, puns. She’s winky winks, dimpled smirks, red red tongues on pink lips. She’s Harry Styles and Friends, tea and Starbucks’ matcha – a matcha green tea with oat milk and heavy cream, 2 pumps of vanilla, 1 pump of hazelnut, sky-high sprays of whipped cream – , gymnastics and dancing on the barre, en pointe. She plays flute and she sings and she stars in a musical every year. She’s nothing like me.)

He’d like me if I looked like her. Who am I kidding? He’d never like someone like me. 

I want to be like her. I want to be like her. I want to be her. I want to bewanttobeher. Iwanttobeherwanttobeherwanttobewwantwantwantobe. 

Her. 

It comes as a surprise to some people that Andy Warhol was a gay man. Still, though he is best known for his pop art, such as ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ (1962), his works expressing his gay identity, like ‘Self-Portrait in Drag’ (1980) and ‘Sleep’ (1963) were nevertheless a statement in a time when homosexuality was criminalized. Artist Cindy Sherman credits Warhol as one of her influences; although her sexual identity does not shape her artistry, her art too acts as social commentary (Briar), trailblazing paths and setting examples for those of similar ideologies. The messages conveyed in Sherman’s artwork and efforts in activism challenge the norm and influence other creators.

When most people think of art, they think of aesthetic beauty, like shapes that mesh, or impressive examples of realism, or art that leaves the viewer feeling impressed. Postmodernism challenges this expectation head-on: practitioners of the postmodernist movement, such as Cindy Sherman, share the belief that art, tradition be damned, ought to exist as a form of expression and inspiration to change minds and teach lessons. The movement snubs the idea of beauty as priority, and prioritizes bold, thought-provoking motifs and never-before-done artistic decisions (Mulvey). 

Cindy Sherman’s Instagram posts are a wonderful example of how she adopts postmodernist concepts into her art. Since creating an Instagram account in 2017, she’s used the platform’s tools to explore the social construct that is ‘Instagram Perfection’: an angelic face and hourglass figure. By taking airbrushing and reshaping her selfies to the social media standard to the extreme, Sherman highlights the differences between inhuman perfection and inhuman monstrosity (Rockefeller). She raises the question: When does exaggerated perfection become alien? With the world becoming desensitized to issues like rises in plastic surgery and Photoshop on the regular, Sherman depicts how our imperfections make us human. This instance of Sherman confronting very real beauty standards is just one occurrence of her creating art which tackles social issues through monstrosity and works of the grotesque. Though messages and ideas are so often transferred through works of art like artwork, music, or film, Sherman confronts ideas that are considered the standard, like women’s worth or sex appeal being reflected in their youth, encouraging her viewers to think more deeply about concepts they’ve become accustomed to and to challenge ideas so prevalent in their lives. This advocacy against current, human biases and customs shapes Sherman as both an artist and activist, but her advocacy transfers outside of her artwork as well.

Scrolling through Sherman’s Instagram page, it’s easy to be distracted by the images of uncannily reconstructed faces, but her Instagram too acts as grounds for her advocacy. Her activism and support of marginalized groups take form in funds to support struggling artists through the pandemic; online petitions and links to articles about and for the Black Lives Matter movement; Instagram Story rants about abortion rights. She manages to use her 372,000 followers and verified status to educate enormous groups of people, remaining conscious of her immense success by fighting the sexual harassment, sexualization, and objectification of women in Hollywood, condemning violations of women’s rights in Iran, and auctioning off art in support of the queer, disabled, and colored communities (Mulvey). Sherman, though allotted the option to revel in fame and success, chose to take advantage of her social megaphone to speak out in support of others and give back. Still, despite Sherman’s efforts to use the scope of her success as tools to advocate for honorable causes, she’s faced plenty of criticism. 

Sherman adopting the concept of postmodernism into her work has acted as a driving force in encouraging discourse and free expression within the art world, but has also garnered criticism from critics in past and modern times. In previous decades, her work had been often condemned by working men and housewives deeming her work unladylike and improper, especially in discussion of themes like sexuality and feminism within her work (Rockefeller). Nevertheless, Sherman’s work has acted as an inspiration for a number of artists within the entertainment industry, in her medium and in her progressive ideals.

‘NXDE’ is a Korean-pop song performed and written by Korean girl group (G)-IDLE. “I’m born nude, and you’re the pervert,” the girls sing. ‘NXDE’ is a song about the sexualization of female idols, or members of Korean-pop groups, and the expectation for beautiful women to be airheads and for feminists to be man-haters. Though completely different from Cindy Sherman’s work in substance, ‘NXDE’ reflects many of the themes seen in Sherman’s work. Credited as ‘the original feminist photo artist’ (Tomkin), Sherman pioneered within the art industry by speaking out about violations of rights with her art, and revolutionized concepts of gender, the sexualization of women, and femininity as a social construct. In some ways, parts of the feminist movement sparked within interpretations of Sherman’s art, and this lit the match that culminated in a brilliant firework sequence that is the modern-day fight for equal rights. So, though ‘NXDE’ may not have been directly inspired by Cindy Sherman, considering the disparities in nationality and artistry, a movement with Sherman at the center of it, the initial marble in a long-winded Rube Goldberg machine, nevertheless influenced the creation of ‘NXDE’ greatly. Sherman touches the art and hearts of those all around the globe thanks to her beliefs and her challenging societal expectations.

Not only have Cindy Sherman’s works added to her efforts in advocacy along with her other charitable ventures, but her art has also inspired other artists in a number of industries, in sometimes intangible ways. The legacy she’s left by popularizing postmodernism, monstrosity in art, speaking out about controversies in her art, and using her platform for the better can be seen everywhere, even in the most unexpected ways. Viewers of her work can agree that the depth and artistic genius of her work is astounding, and it translates within her message, beliefs, and movement.

1896 marked a Supreme Court Case that shifted the preconception of the U.S. and its discussion and acting on of race and segregation. The Plessy v. Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court decision legalized the practice of racial segregation and established the “separate but equal” doctrine, giving rise to the start of Jim Crow legislation being written into law. Even so, the discrimination against and mistreatment of African American people lasted from even before the case took place, stemming from white supremacist and imperialist ideals.

Imperialist ideals and negative portrayal of black people caused a differentiation between and therefore separation of the races. In other words, a racial caste system was put into place. Throughout the period of time prior to the Jim Crow Era and following the enslavement of African Americans known as the Reconstruction Era, black men were characterized as wild and immoral beasts who raped virtuous white women, while black women were portrayed as crass, wild seductresses of young, naive white men. This distinction between white people as God-fearing, pious people and black people as bestial, subhuman animals contributed to the scientific racism during that era, or belief in the natural designation of white people as superior to all other races.

Within the case leading up to the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Decision, Homer Plessy, an activist for African American citizens’ rights was accused of violating the ‘Separate Car Act’  and faced imprisonment. The ‘Separate Car Act’ ruled that railway cars were to be segregated by race, or than ‘no person or persons shall be permitted to occupy seats in coaches other than the ones assigned to them, on account of the race they belong to’, and that upon any rejection of such ruling, ‘[officers] shall have power to refuse to carry such passenger on his train’. To violate this ruling, Plessy, a white-presenting Black Creole of seven-eighths white heritage and one-eighths black heritage, bought a ticket to a white railway car without facing refusal, and was only arrested upon yelling that he himself was black. Despite being nearly fully white in heritage and white-passing, this African ‘taint’ upon his ancestry caused him to be arrested. This expresses the white-supremacist thinking of themselves being superior and black blood being inferior and tarnishing a white appearance. 

The distinction set between the races and therefore white supremacist thinking caused lynching and the mistreatment of African American people within segregated spaces. White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan used violence to attack and intimidate African Americans and their supporters.White supremacist groups, or in other words, terrorist groups, lynched and tortured many black people as a form of ‘administering justice’. The lynching, or putting to death (typically the hanging of an individual by a mob), of black men was usually enacted as a response to the accusations of said black men’s raping and murdering of white women. The accusations rose from the negative portrayal of black men and systemic biases at the time. Thousands of innocent civil rights activists’ lives were lost through lynching and other forms of violence. 

Outside of violence and murder present leading up to the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court Decision, African Americans faced several forms of discrimination and segregation even prior to the formal enaction of Jim Crow laws. Not only were segregated public spaces blatant in qualitative differences of passenger coaches, utilities, and such, the Black Codes, a set of laws, were put into place, restricting the rights of former slaves, and later all African Americans, despite constitutional amendments that set African American peoples’ inalienable rights into stone.  Leading up to the Jim Crow era, black people faced substandard healthcare, substandard education, and ‘daily humiliations’ like being waited on last or being forced to make way for white people at crosswalks. During the Jim Crow era, the general poverty and general low educational levels of African Americans were used to justify their lack of rights, whether constitutional or political (black people were excluded from the Democratic party, which was the power that instituted Jim Crow laws). In other words, African American people were segregated against in many blatant, humiliating ways even prior to the Jim Crow era, and this segregation was too even justified prior to the Jim Crow era. 

While the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision itself gave rise to legalized segregation and Jim Crow ideals and legislation, the discrimination against and mistreatment of African Americans had long existed, even after the abolition of slavery and throughout the Reconstruction Era. This discrimination and mistreatment was inspired by the white supremacist and imperialist ideals of much of the white population at the time, too inspiring the Plessy v. Ferguson court case and legacy.