Tuesday, June 23, 2009

IN PRAISE OF THE BURKA

Recently French President Sarkozy spoke out against the Burka, saying that it had no place in civilized society.

Respectfully, I beg to differ. Nothing could be MORE civilized than the Burka.


Not only is the Burka a graceful all-purpose garment, but it states assertively that the wearer is no submissive slave to fashion - by no means, even, as she has rejected the exorbitant prices charged by French Couturiers, and the exploitation of the female form for the purposes of male delectation!
Wearing her Burka, she proudly tells the world "none of your business", in response to wolfish glances in her direction. She has no truck with mere superficiality, or the shallow emphasis on a stylish appearance.


The Burka, more than any other garment, reasserts a dignity for the wearer, free from the chains of the French and Italian obsession with expensive designer shmattot!


Here in fashion-deprived San Francisco, the Burka could also serve a splendid purpose.


A few weeks ago, while enjoying a pipe outdoors, a whole host of elderly men wearing dresses and high-heels trooped by. Several of them had even bowed to the dictates of feminazi fashion by applying lipstick and rouge, the poor dears, and not very well at that! Their fragile crepe-like skin merely served to highlight the artificiality and garishness of such alleged aids to beauty. Truly, shmears of raw colour do not accent faces, but merely attract the startled glance.
It is my considered opinion that whatever purpose their tripping about gaily in their pretty dresses may have had, would have been more nobly served had they but worn burkas!
How dignified that would have been! Think of the majesty, think of the gravitas!


Think of large floral patterns.


And above all, think of the little children, whose impressionable minds so easily absorb the example set by people wearing crimson lipstick, tight corsets, and frilly summer frocks cinched just ever so, with the top-surface of exaggerated bosomage in full view!
What must they think? What can they think? When such things are common and unquestioned, it affects their little minds, and they absorb feudal gender roles without any hope of resisting!
Haute couture, like badly applied make-up, only masks the true beauty within.

Surely little boys and girls DESERVE to grow up free from sexist tyranny?

9 comments:

Dhulika said...

Slimming in stripes, or sprightly with polka dots. Gay and vivacious in canary yellow. Or even mysterious and come hither in scarlet or indigo.

Oh I just can't wait to go back!

Anonymous said...

Covered women gives me a woody.

Ari said...

Burquawitz.

Tzipporah said...

Something ironic in reading this after spending yesterday evening stultifying my mind watching "The Devil Wears Prada" on TV.

Bah, too many commercials.

But who WOULDN'T love to see Meryl Streep or Stanley Tucci in a burka?

btw - looks like they're teaming up again for "Julie and Julia," the movie version of a wonderful blog/book I enjoyed a couple years ago, where a NYC woman decides to cook all the recipes in The Art of French Cooking in a single year.

Somehow it seems like something you would enjoy, BoTH, despite the lack of tobacco.

The back of the hill said...

Tzipporah, that DOES sound like it would be an enjoyable movie.

Possibly even one to add to the list of all-time great food movies.

Tampopo, Le Grande Bouffe, Como Agua para Chocolate, Babette's Feast, Eat Drink Man Woman ......

Readers, please feel free to nominate other movies.
A groissen dank forois.

Spiros said...

BIG NIGHT. Speaking of Stanley Tucci.

Tzipporah said...

Ha! Spiros, you took the gnocchi (er, words) right out of my mouth!

Also, Mostly Martha (the original 2001 French version), Fried Green Tomatoes (yes, this is stretching it a bit), The Road to Wellville (in which food features as a serious obsession), Apres Vous (WONDERFUL!! Frenchmen and suicide and restaurant humor!), Pieces of April (misadventures with a turkey and a lot of malfunctioning rental ovens at Thanksgiving, plus family dysfunction), and stretching the "food" definition there is Sideways.

And one that I haven't yet seen but have on my list to watch: The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover

Anonymous said...

I've read burkas prevent absorption of vitamin D so I'm all for muslim women wearing them may they die in birth labor.

Spiros said...

No "stretching" involved for SIDEWAYS...wine IS food.
Serious stretching for FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, an execrable exercise in cinematic bathos (I'm so glad Mary-Louise Parker has stopped dying of cancer in all of her roles); I might also take this opportunity to nominate DINNER RUSH, with Danny Aiello, Sandra Berhard, and the great Ajay (Samir, from OFFICE SPACE) Naidu.

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