It's time. Nail Polish Sunday is back and I'm so excited about it! This week I'm watching Carrie and doing Dia de Los Muertos nails!
My Colors
(from left to right) Lightening by Sally Hansen, Alpine Snow - Matte by OPI, Black Sketch by Milani, Jancyn by Zoya, Breezi by Zoya, Play Date by Essie & Pretty Edgy by Essie
First paint your nails with Alpine Snow. It's a matte polish so it will dry quickly.
Next, paint the outlines for the skull's hair.
After that dries, fill in the skull's hair with Pretty Edgy. I used a toothpick to color in the lines. If you mess up, you can always repaint the black outlines.
Now it's time to add the teeth. I tried to paint the teeth as close to the ends of my nails as possible.
Next add the eyes! I made different color combinations for each nail using Lightening, Jancyn, Breezi & Play Date. The eyes are simple flower designs. For each eye, I painted one larger flower and let it dry. Then painted a second flower on top and a dot in the middle. Add the nose and you're done!
Yay Sugar Skulls! Happy Día de los Muertos!
Carrie Time!
Carrie begins in a girl's locker room. High school girls are prancing around naked, bouncing, and laughing in slow motion, as girls normally do after gym class. Carrie is in the shower cleaning herself and touching her thighs sensually when she notices blood on her hand. Her first reaction is to run out of the shower, naked and screaming. By the way, all the girls in Carrie's gym class (in addition to having an affinity for naked, slow motion merriment) are unnecessarily mean. They laugh and start throwing tampons at Carrie as she cowers in the corner. The gym teacher, Miss Collins, punishes the mean girls by forcing them to stay after school and do weirdly sexual squatting exercises for two hours (question mark).
Important to note that Carrie was conceived during pre-marital sex. So her mom is now super religious, keeps her daughter away from boys and avoids having the period talk. When Carrie gets home, her mother is furious that she has menstruated. She makes Carrie repeat "the first sin was intercourse" and locks her in a closet. PS after Carrie gets her period she also gets telekinetic powers.
One of the locker room frolicking mean girls, Sue, actually feels bad about throwing tampons at Carrie while yelling "plug it up". To make up for being a horrible human being she convinces her boyfriend, Tommy, to take Carrie to prom. Tommy (who 1. has the same exact hair style as his girlfriend and 2. is actually a nice person) agrees.
Carrie is afraid that if she goes to prom, everyone will laugh at her, so she consults Miss Collins. Miss Collins tells Carrie that she shouldn't be sad or upset about anything in life because she is beautiful. She brings Carrie to the mirror and shows her that with a little mascara and a curling iron Carrie can be even more beautiful and therefore even happier. #feminism
We are finally at the prom. Carrie has done the whole ugly girl to pretty girl transformation and is dancing with Tommy. They announce prom king and queen; Tommy and Carrie win. This was all planned by the #1 mean girl and her boyfriend, a very young and greasy looking John Travolta (woah, good pun Julia!). Anyway, young John Travolta and #1 mean girl drop a bucket of pig's blood on Carrie as she's accepting her crown (feminist film theory book called it an inverse of the shower scene...brilliant). Carrie freezes and her telekinetic powers force the entire gymnasium to light on fire and kill off almost everyone in the movie. Carrie then walks home in a zombie-like trance. Her mother is hiding inside the house with a knife and she stabs Carrie. Then Carrie's powers force a bunch of knives and kitchenware to fly into the air and crucify her mother. The film ends with Carrie hiding in a closet and holding her mother as their house implodes and lights on fire.
So what just happened?
I consulted my feminist horror film theory books (which now live with my in my Cambridge apartment, YAY!) to find out. Here's what I learned:
Monstrous, Sexual & on her Period
The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis (I am in my happy place) explains that Carrie's evil powers appear after she menstruates. There's actually a point to that opening locker room scene. It's a very calm and joyful way to start Carrie. Everything is right in the world. Semi-naked girls are slow motion prancing around like nymphs while lovely harp music plays in the background. Carrie is in the shower, washing her body and smiling. Some girls are playfully throwing their clothing into the air and then catching it. What fun! Also important to note, all sound is non-diegetic (new vocabulary word, it just means the sound is coming from outside the story world, aka the character's voices are muted and music plays).
Then blood appears on Carrie's leg! She screams, halting the music and bringing us back to diegetic sound. Bye, bye happy place with the friendly nymph girls and clean white towels. Now the girls turn into demons, throwing tampons at Carrie and taunting her. All because Carrie menstruated. Carrie's puberty causes the scene to shift from merriment to monstrous. A lightbulb mysteriously shatters in the locker room, marking the beginning of her telekinetic powers.
Carrie has no control over her puberty and therefore no control over her new powers. As she becomes more sexual (interested in Tommy Ross), her powers escalate. In the beginning she's just moving objects, but by the end, she's straight up murdering everyone in her high school. She is the monster, but she's also the victim. She didn't choose to menstruate. Puberty has been forced upon her and it is the real monster.
