Precious is so hot right now. It’s our Obama-era Brokeback Mountain, the mainstream movie of the year that made mainstream audiences feel incredibly informed and liberal. Basically, Precious is Oscar bait. This awards season, the faces of director Lee Daniels and stars Mo’Nique and Gabourey Sidibe (all Oscar nominees for the film) are plastered all over our televisions and Crackberrys. But the accompanying articles seem not to concentrate on the stars’ performances, but rather on their physiques. Specifically, their bellies. And their leg hair. Wait, Mo’Nique doesn’t shave?! Stop the presses!

Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, the film Precious chronicles the life of the sixteen-year-old title character, an African-American girl growing up in 1980s Harlem. Precious can barely read or write. Her father has impregnated her twice. Her mother beats her regularly with a frying pan, forces her to cook pigs’ feet, and openly seethes at her daughter for “stealing” her husband by bearing his children.

Precious’ most miraculous attribute is her ability to craft an identity for herself and persevere despite great adversity. Surprisingly, the focus of this epic tale of human survival is not touted by the media as such. Why not? Because Precious is fat. Okay, Precious might be obese. But from the way the film is publicized, one would think that she explodes at the end or gets fatally trapped on a chair lift while skiing. In the movie, however, Precious’ weight is the least of her worries. Gabourey Sidibe, the actress who plays the titular character, had a brusque response to the media’s obsession with her character’s weight: “It’s like, she’s fat. Well fucking A. She’s already having a hard life. So what, if she was skinny, would this story be any the less heartfelt or daunting? That’s not the story. That’s not the point.”

The media’s focus on Precious’ weight, to the point of excluding the film’s primary themes of racism and sexism in our society, demonstrates its elitism—as if thinness, a characteristic prized by the white intelligentsia, could somehow have saved Precious from her trials. The media implies that obesity is a fate that is completely preventable under her circumstances, somehow implying that being fat is a completely different issue from race or class, and that Precious somehow contributed to her own suffering.

Members of the press often confuse Sidibe for her character. In interviews, reporters have remarked at how astonishingly confident and articulate the 26-year old actress is. You know, in real life. Implied is the assumption that Sidibe wouldn’t have any other personality than that of the rape and domestic abuse victim she portrayed in Precious. Sidibe, a Harlem native and former psychology major at The City College of New York, doesn’t have a lot of patience for this misunderstanding. She asserts, “They try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life, and then I got this role and now I’m awesome. But the truth is that I’ve been awesome, and then I got this role.”

When a makeup artist on a New York Magazine photo shoot gushed that Sidibe looked “totally opposite to [her] character,” Sidibe replied simply, “Thanks. I’m actually…not her.” And it’s true. Sidibe is SO not her. She professes to have multiple boyfriends and occasionally refers to herself in the third person. She’s a total diva. Yeah, newsflash: she’s an actress. Frankly, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows that movies aren’t real and that this woman is, in fact, acting. But does the press assume Sidibe should be inarticulate and meek because of her race? Surely, we’re past that as a country…Obama is Prez! No, it’s because Sidibe is actually Precious’ size. Do we as a society therefore believe that being fat is a shameful sin?

And then there’s Mo’Nique. Already a stand-up icon, the comic actress gave a transcendentally brutal performance as Precious’ abusive mother Mary. The woman could’ve schooled Stanislavski himself on method acting in this role. And yet, all anyone can talk about is Mo’Nique’s love of fried shrimp. And her ballsy demeanor. And the fact that she frequently parades her unshaven legs around red carpets. According to jezebel.com, Mo’Nique said on the View that “her unshaven legs are ‘real legs’ and the rest of us have just bought into some strange social convention that they aren’t attractive or that men won’t desire us if we don’t keep up with the Joneses.”

Mo’Nique’s point is valid and gives the rest of us pause to consider the lengths we go to in order to remove unwanted hair from our bodies. So why is an Oscar nominee discussing her leg hair on The View? Would Barbara Walters ask Tom Cruise if he wears lifts (he does) or Nicholas Cage if he wears hair plugs (he does) on national television? Dubious. Yet Mo’Nique’s leg hair is newsworthy. In fact, the New York Daily News devoted a 363-word article specifically to the topic. Reporters also seem to relish describing what Mo’Nique eats during the course of their interviews. Does the New York Times really need to relay that Mo’Nique requested “three orders of jumbo buffalo shrimp to go” at lunch? We get it. Mo’Nique is fat. But she is also a visionary who doesn’t subscribe to Hollywood by molding her career to satiate its desires. She lives in Atlanta where she films her talk show, “The Mo’Nique Show,” daily. She and her husband manage her career autonomously. She chose to do Precious as a means of raising awareness for victims of domestic abuse, a tragedy she has experienced herself.

Mo’Nique now plans to continue performing primarily stand-up because it makes her happy. And she isn’t planning on pimping herself out on carpets and talk shows this season to campaign for the Oscar. Mo’Nique thinks that her performance should speak for itself, saying, “President Barack Obama had to campaign because he had something to prove: that he could do it. Well, the performance is on the screen. So at what point am I still trying to prove something?” These are the words of a truly confident actress, one who knows that she absolutely deserves the award, and that she’ll probably get it. And she sure as hell won’t be nicking herself in the shower anytime soon.

In Precious, Mary internalizes what she reads as society’s hatred of her—white people oppress her, no one thinks she deserves an education, and her man loses sexual interest in her—and projects this hatred onto her only daughter. This is the great tragedy of the film, that Mary brings about Precious’ suffering because her own is so profound that she sees no hope of alleviating it. Precious is a story of black oppression, but, more universally, it is a story of female oppression.

Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique exude quite clearly that they love their physical beings and themselves, demonstrating that black women and overweight women in America have come to reject society’s prejudices. However, our media is lagging behind them. Yeah, they are saying, we are ready to appreciate racial minorities now. But we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves truly liberal in our judgments of individuals who may choose to shave, wax, or go native.

Here at Dartmouth, real trends in fashion, politics, and tectonic plate movement often don’t permeate our bubble. But like any isolated civilization, we have developed our unique visual code to signify status, allegiance, and resistance through our dress. Unfortunately, this coding usually involves sweatshirts. I’ll never forget the time I was sitting with a friend and somebody dressed as a cow in FoCo. I was enjoying my sub-par cup of frozen fat, when two pledges started yelling at me to turn around. “You better not be serious about that sweatshirt. YO, YO! FUCK YALE!! Take that shit OFF!” OK, so I was wearing a Yale sweatshirt. And they were probably blacked out. BUT, I am from New Haven, born and raised, and Yale was a very important part of my childhood. And last time I checked, we don’t live in medieval England, so I’m pretty sure the laws about only royalty being allowed to wear ermine cuffs, or Yale sweatshirts, or whatever, have been abolished. I wasn’t going to let them humiliate me. So I calmly licked my spoon, stood up, and proceeded to disrobe in front of them, revealing my eight nipples and Dark Mark to all of FoCo. And then I stole their sirens. Just kidding.

A lot of what we wear here has less to do with self-presentation in the traditional sense and more to do with associating yourself visually with a tribe (i.e. Greek house, athletic team, or campus group). We live in kind of an alternate universe, one where sparkly fanny packs denote a higher social standing than dress ties? But we aren’t completely disconnected from society and its fashion dictates. We go to West Leb occasionally (…Tuxedo Store?) and browse online sales during 10As. We have a vague understanding of fashionable colors and silhouettes. And then we throw this notion in the blender with three cups of flair, a liter of Keystone, and three weeks at the end of the term without enough DA$H left to do laundry. And that’s when things get real. Real beat. So we’ve canvassed our peers to find out what they think the most offensive campus trends are. Here are the results:

“If people here actually followed real fashion trends, I’d say Aladdin pants. They look like kitten hammocks between your legs.”
–Kathleen Mayer ‘11

“Psi U unis.” –Anonymous

“KDE’s ‘Down to 09F’ pledge shirt just rubs me the wrong way. Especially because it comes from a sorority that claims to be progressive on the gender equality front. It seems like a step in the wrong direction.” –Anonymous

“See-through leggings as pants.” –Everyone.[Disclaimer: I am a prime offender of this trend. It is becoming an offensively perennial staple in my wardrobe.]

“Tights as pants…not that I’m complaining.”
–Andrew Mertens ‘12

“Dartmouth Indian T-Shirts.”
-Hilary Krutt

“The word Dartmouth plastered on everything.” –AJ Kuhr ‘13

“Your tights.” –Mary Ann Carolan ‘80
[Disclaimer: these were actually
leggings. See above.]

“Kappa ribbons.” –Anonymous

Booty shakin’. Thumping beats. Tuck students catcalling from the shadows. Sounds like any another Friday night on the Dartmouth frat circuit, but this time it’s Tabard’s Lingerie Show—one of the most controversial events on campus. As freshmen, we opened our “Lingerie” blitzes blushing and bewildered. Little did we know what Lingerie actually entails—creative costumes, choreographed dance, unchoreographed grinding, and varying degrees of nudity. What?! People get naked at Lingerie? Now informed, we chose to either bolt for a familiar frat basement or stick around and see just how “scary” Lingerie really is. Luckily, I chose the latter.

The Tabard, a Co-ed house located in the Montmartre district of Frat Row, hosts Lingerie every Wednesday before big weekends—Homecoming in the fall, Winter Carnival in the winter, and Green Key in the spring. The show sets the tone for the next three days of indulgence. But Lingerie isn’t just another glorified dance party. It has a purpose. “Lingerie is a celebration of the body. The goal is that everyone leaves the stage feeling beautiful,” says three-time lingerie host George Neptune ’10. Neptune feels that many don’t perform in Lingerie because they fear the audience won’t appreciate their nearly nude form. But heckling is, “not allowed at Tabard.” Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of Lingerie is the audience’s observation of protocol. No one is allowed to take pictures, except the official Tabard photographer, and for the most part nobody does. Well, at least they don’t surface on Facebook, which Neptune feels very strongly about “because we’re all friends with our Moms.”

Who even goes to Lingerie? Prospies? Jim Kim and family? The Sun God? Probably. No one can say for sure who’s in the audience, but it doesn’t really matter because they’re all part of the community. As soon as the audience members enter the Tabard’s cavernous theater, they sign an unspoken yet irrevocable contract to support each performer. Abby McCann ’11, who has performed three times in Lingerie, said “It’s interesting. Half of them are there because they don’t know what it is, and their jaws drop, and the other half are people you know. But by the end of the show, it’s much more of a homogeneous crowd. Everyone’s into it, everyone’s totally hooked.” The audience assumes this attitude independently, but it is Neptune’s job as host to get the energy up to the level the performers need to feel comfortable letting loose and enjoying themselves on the catwalk. His approach? “The first few minutes of the show are about me trying to figure out what the audience is about. You almost have to mold their response and find something that evokes a response. This term I found that they responded when I made dirty jokes about them.” The audience is an integral part of Lingerie, because without its energy the performers would wilt. In this sense, Lingerie is theater in its truest form. Christian Brandt ’12, who has performed in Lingerie twice bluntly said, “If there wasn’t an audience, there wouldn’t be any point.” McCann agreed, “When you’re onstage you’re relying on everyone in the audience to support you and not judge you, and if you’re in the audience, you’re completely connected to the performers.”

Dartmouth is a self-obsessed campus where “facetime” can feel like a fourth class. This might be the only place in the world where rainbow hair is a status symbol. Yet, we still blush when we hear that people actually get NAKED at Lingerie. Brandt attributes our embarrassment to an American phobia of nudity, which is more pronounced than in Western Europe. Brandt’s frustration with this taboo influenced his decision to go full frontal at this term’s Lingerie show. He also felt the need to spice up what he perceived to be a somewhat bland show: “The rest of the acts were more or less the same. What sets you apart is choreography and actual nudity. People have such an ‘issue’ with nudity that they don’t think people are actually gonna get naked, especially penis! Because there’s more of a taboo against genital nudity.” Continued Brandt, “I could have stripped naked in the basement of Tri-Kap, but nobody would have appreciated it.” For many, Lingerie is a release. It is their single chance to go buck wild in public and still be accepted at Dartmouth. Neptune echoed Brandt’s sentiment; saying, “if you’re going to make facetime, might as well make some asstime too!” It’s fantastic that Lingerie can provide individuals with such a confidence boost, but is making asstime at Lingerie the only opportunity we have to express ourselves fully in the Dartmouth social scene?”

McCann recounted her first experience performing in Lingerie: “[It was] terrifying, I was wearing these booty shorts and we had to bend over, and I was so worried that I was going to show everything to the whole world. But then I just got up there and I totally lost all my inhibitions. That’s what Lingerie is all about. The audience is screaming and the lights are all on you. And you feel totally safe even though you’re putting your body out there.” McCann feels that, particularly as a woman, to feel sexy and safe in a social space at Dartmouth is extremely rare. She attributes this contrast to the fact that Tabard is a Co-ed: “Especially as a woman, if Tabard were a fraternity, I would feel like I were performing for men, like in a real strip club. The fact that Tabard is a co-ed also encourages everyone to get up there and perform—same sex couples, same sex groups. I think also it would be hard for a fraternity not to advertise it as kind of a skeevy thing.”

Perhaps the embarrassment with which some students regard Lingerie stems not only from American cultural taboos but also from Dartmouth’s frat culture, which thrives on segregation of the sexes, unquestioned ritual and secrecy. Brandt remarked on the hypocrisy of Dartmouth students criticizing nudity in the Lingerie show, saying “People don’t seem to have any conception of how inappropriate or appropriate sex is in frat basements. People gratuitously make out in a basement, but then go to Lingerie and are like, ‘That’s gross!’” There is a lot of shame inherent in a society that appreciates sex and the human anatomy only in certain basement corners, only on certain weekends, and only after a certain amount of alcohol. Maybe if we appreciated each other’s bodies every day the way we do during Lingerie, campus date rape statistics would go down. Maybe we’d be one step closer to doing away with our Greek system.”

Performing in Lingerie is like flying. Underneath the blinding lights it’s just you, your snakeskin banana hammock, your whip, and your co-performer. You might remember your “routine” or you might just let the music and the cheering shape your movement for the next two and a half minutes. This is what it must feel like to be Jesus. The only mistake you can make is to believe that you can actually defy gravity on that creaky wooden box runway. It’s really narrow. Especially in four-inch wedges. But even if you fall, like I have, you’ll still feel sexier than you ever have before. And you know what else you’re not worrying about? Your muffin top. And that’s a beautiful thing. Lingerie is also one of the few activities at Dartmouth in which you can participate without having to go through a rigorous and ultimately demoralizing audition process. As a performer, it reminds you that you are beautiful and beloved by your community. And as an audience member, it reminds you of the fierce love that holds Dartmouth together, underneath the hard guy façade.

“It’s not about you,” said McCann. “It’s about what we’re doing together. It’s not about ego—it’s about glorification of the body.” So, ‘13s, don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. Check out Lingerie next term. But a word of caution, you may soon end up on that stage yourselves. Butt. Ass. Naked.