"Suffering which appeared without intelligible cause would not be understood; a concealed action that was actually cruel would transgress the unwritten rules of wrestling and would have no more efficacy than a mad or parasitic gesture." - Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling"
Each era puts women in a characteristic pose. These mute gestures, frozen for posterity by photographers and illustrators, eventually become emblematic of that period. Just as the flapper had two knock-kneed poses—hands on knees, hands in air with palms out--so also are women depicted in two positions today. One, she stands there with one arm crossed uncomfortably across her stomach; two, she stands there with both arms crossed uncomfortably across her stomach. Adopted without knowing, these are postures of suffering, defined by inactivity. Unlike the carefree, life-loving flapper, one can't imagine what this woman does, except not eat.
The female image of our time is the anorexic. Partially from the world of wrestling (for that is what she's doing, though she's in the ring with no opponent), her studied gestures take their names: the half karen and the full karen. They also take their names from you-know-who, the most famous Amer-ican anorexic of the last 25 years. It doesn't matter if a woman depicted in a fashion spread or acting in a sitcom is not really an anorexic, as the spokespeople for these industries feel compelled to claim. She's playing one. Let models and actresses go on protesting that they eat steak and french fries every night—it's become part of the act.
The women who put these holds on themselves don't seem conscious of it, any more than Egyptians in a hieroglyph know that their arms and hands are frozen in angles that look weird and uncomfortable to us today. If asked why they've adopted this posture, the waifs of today would probably reply that they're not trying to hide, they're not trying to disappear, they're not trying to erase themselves, they're not trying to pretend they don't exist or that they're not what they are, it's just that they're cold. In these gestures of self-consciousness, the half karen and the full karen, self-consciousness isn't possible. Those who adopt them are in the moment, and the moment says: Be like an anorexic, even if you're not one.
Does it matter any more whether distinctions are made between observing these stances in the real life of the mall or in the represented life of the home mall of mail-order clothing catalogs like J. Crew? The half karen and the full karen present themselves everywhere. Women stand waiting at bus stops whose walls are ads depicting how they stand as they wait.
It now seems increasingly unlikely that there will come a time when this era is looked back on and everyone goes, "I get it—those people were all sick; they didn't eat on purpose; they made themselves throw up." Because by then, models will be paying to have their legs broken and reset improperly, the only way they'll be able to master the increasingly complicated runway walks the future will demand of them.
The drama of the half karen and the full karen is the opposite of the classical drama Barthes discovered in wrestling. This new drama is defined by its reserve. Its depictions in culture are fleeting and never the point of the fashion spread at hand, or at eye. It will be the explicit subject of only the most useless of After-School Specials or the most mawkish of art-school concept pieces. Instead, it shows itself just outside the line of vision—on inane TV shows, at the periphery of the food court at the mall. This drama is not in the photographs themselves, it's in the bodies of the women being photographed. The photographs objectify something that's already been objectified.
The half karen and the full karen show an internalization of the values of a society ripping itself apart, but one that has no seams. We watch this process from the end of the runway, waving good-bye at the same time as we embrace it in a big hello, an air kiss for each cheekbone.
The Half Karen: Gestures of supreme self-consciousness, these holds have paradoxically become so natural that they're now difficult to enact self-consciously. You know them by their attitudes of waiting and annoyance; by the desire they project of both wanting to disappear and to call attention; to fend off all advances and be hugged at the same time.
The Full Karen: Demonstrates the overt message, "I'm cold." The full karen can accommodate both a clutching tenseness and a too-relaxed nod-off. Its brittle elasticity confuses those who would analyze it, such as the present author. The next time you see someone putting herself in one of these holds, you make the call.
