Lipstick=target of death threats
Rolling Stone is making googoo eyes at Jeffrey Marsh.
YOU DON’T HAVE to tell Jeffrey Marsh they make a certain portion of the internet upset. They’re well aware— they just won’t let it stop them from helping people.
Politics and idenniny aside, the “they” affectation is just bad writing. It makes extra work for the reader. It’s confusing and distracting both at once. That makes it irritating, so that’s three things that get between the reader and the writing.
Long before trans star Dylan Mulvaney‘s collaboration with Bud Light lit a portion of the right’s brains on fire, Marsh was making videos about love. Part pun, part dance, part affirmations, their videos directly address the viewers, encouraging them to self-reflect, accept themselves, and sometimes just choose peace. “I can predict the future,” Marsh says in one of their early viral videos on Vine, posted in 2014. “And you’re going to be OK.” “Maybe all you need to know is you are great, just as you are now!” “The way you express yourself: it’s up to you. It’s not up to anybody else.”
Yeah yeah yeah. What Rolling Stone of course leaves out here is his utterly creepy, indeed skin-crawling, presentation of self. Buffalo Bill was Fred Astaire in comparison.
Marsh is nonbinary, loves wearing bright lipstick, and is open about their support for the LGBTQ+ community, all things that have made them an ongoing target for death threats and right-wing campaigns. They tell Rolling Stone that there are days when their husband, Jeff, has to stand in the gap for them when negative backlash is louder than their inner peace. But their years of being a vocal advocate for self-love mean that now, even when there’s pushback, Marsh is staying focused on their mission: helping as many people as possible.
Oh he’s an advocate for self-love all right. I’ve never seen anyone so infatuated with himself.
Time for the Q and A at last.
How do you think the violent response to trans existence has changed how queer people interact with the world right now?
A very reasonable and thoughtful question.
I stopped reading at that point. Life’s too short.
“YOU DON’T HAVE to tell Jeffrey Marsh they make a certain portion of the internet upset. They’re well aware— they just won’t let it stop them from helping people.”
Obviously I thought that the “they” at first referred to “a certain portion of the internet.” And it all went downhill from there.
Maybe it’s just the unflattering result of the close-up use of a wide-angle lens (never a good look; check out Arnold Newman’s portrait of Alfred Krupp: https://leemorleyncscreative.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/alfred-krupp-by-arnold-newman/ ), but Marsh has always reminded me of the mummy of Ramses II. Also never a good look.
That is a wonderful and evocative photograph. It’s even more delicious that Krupp willingly, if unknowingly contributed to the outcome.
lighting the human face from below always and automatically ‘others’ the person so lit. It casts shadows on the face rendering it in a way that is so abnormal we instinctively find it unsettling. The industrial setting, skewed height perspective and yellow/green cast all contribute. A masterpiece.
Other good tricks for photos of people you don’t like. Boost the contrast, and if in black and white use a blue filter 9it will accentuate defects in the skin).
Rob, but what makes it so good is that Newman didn’t light it from below but evenly from each side. As he says in the video bottom lighting would have been too obvious. The side lighting is unusual enough to give a sense of the uncanny without reducing Krupp to the level of a cartoon villain. But the real genius is in getting Krupp to lean forward. Enough rope. The difference between good portrait photography and great portrait photography has nothing to do with the camera – it’s the psychology (though the tricks you mention certainly help)..
Oh it’s lit from each side, but the centre of the lights is definitely lower than the face.
Rolling Stone on his book — “It’s a flowery message given by a person who built a career by giving beautiful advice.”
Some of his advice to children wasn’t so beautiful. Telling them to go ‘no contact’ with parents. Telling them to message him privately, without supervision. Telling parents they shouldn’t propose protecting young women and girls because it’s “anti-trans.” This is among all the recycled, new agey, self help garbage, delivered in sickly-sweet hushed presentations (what they call “flowery”). All documented. Children are his main target, and he addresses them directly.
Portraying people who disagree as “far right” and murderous is ridiculous. There are people who want to protect their children from this guy — they are not wrong or bad people. The ones who advocate for Marsh are the irresponsible and malicious ones, and every bit as creepy as he is. There is nothing beautiful about him or his message — which is the promotion and advancement of gender ideology. Rolling Stone’s spin on Marsh is as worthless as lipstick on a pig.
I despise these platitudes.
“I can predict the future, and you’re going to be okay.”
Unless you’re not, in which case you’ll be dead and unable to point out how full of crap I was.
“Maybe all you need to know is you are great, just as you are now!”
Maybe all you need to know is that you are not great, just as you are now. Maybe, you kind of suck and need to take some time to make the effort to not suck. Maybe you need to consider that there is a whole world out there full of things you don’t know or understand, and rather than jacking off to your own reflection, you should go out there and have some life changing experiences.
This whole idea of “You are great, just as you are now” is if anything incredibly toxic, because most of us fall into that second camp of people who are not particularly great, we’ve got to put some work in, and honestly? Even the people who are great? They don’t stay that way by resting on their laurels.
Besides, being great as you are now would be profoundly depressing. It is like saying it all gets worse from here on out.
“The way you express yourself: it’s up to you. It’s not up to anybody else.”
No. Everybody else does in fact get a say in how you express yourself, because if you say “Fsaad wekhrfshf kashdkdash weabsz” not a lot of people are going to understand you.
“But their years of being a vocal advocate for self-love…”
Self love, is, to put it bluntly, narcissism. This is an issue that goes beyond the trans movement – it is how you end up with people like Donald Trump. Some self criticism is healthy, heck having some shame isn’t a bad thing. Sure, have some self-respect, don’t be a doormat, but keep in mind that those negative feelings? They’re as important as the positive ones.
This whole article sounds like how to bonsai a personality – a poisoned sweetness that presents itself as support but really just stunts the audience’s growth.
Nailed it.
[…] a comment by Bruce Gorton on Lipstick=target of death […]
I’m always baffled that anyone finds these kinds of general affirmations uplifting or meaningful. Some complete stranger declaring that every single person watching is beautiful, smart, wonderful, etc. is empty. If everyone is beautiful, smart, wonderful, etc., then nobody is.
Same plus baffled that anyone fails to be outright insulted by such baby talk.
[…] I said life is too short to go on with that Rolling Stone love letter to Jeffrey Marsh, but I’ve changed my mind – life is too short but the love letter is too stupid to leave unmocked. […]