<\/a>The 'Glasses
Apostle' by Conrad von Soest (1403)<\/p><\/div>\n
Of course, the popularity of pre-makeover glasses
– and their enduring use in teen films –
is partly practical. Glasses are the easiest way to
disguise a Hollywood beauty, and an instantly
recognisable trope for your basic socially inept
personality traits: ‘brains’,
‘practicality’ etc.\u00a0But as a
teenager you\u2019re inevitably subjected to a
series of little humiliations and embarrassments
that go on to dog you, to a greater or lesser
extent, for a large part of your adult life. As a
girl growing up behind a pair of glasses, and
steeped in the standard adolescent amount of
ideological nonsense, you cannot but associate all
that tedious baggage (‘I’m unattractive!
I’m awkward! Nobody fancies me!’) with
the teenage glasses, and shedding it with embracing
contact lenses.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it even seems to be a kind of ironic (and
slightly obnoxious) appropriation of these
ideas\u00a0when,
conversely, glasses are deemed
‘sexy’<\/a>\u00a0in themselves.\u00a0One
slightly palm-sweating blog in this vein compares
them to garters – ‘men want to take them
off [the woman wearing them]’, except more \u00a0fetishy<\/a>.\u00a0Personally,
I just wear them cos I like …seeing.<\/p>\n
Glasses-wearer By Day, Superhero By Night<\/h3>\n
This is not just one for the girls – before
he discovered the famous NHS frames, a very
image-aware (but severely myopic) John Lennon
refused to wear glasses when playing live, making
him a Beatle who didn’t actually
see<\/em> the Cavern Club. But, by and large,
men in glasses seem to have had an easier ride:
the\u00a0counterpart to the ‘sexy
secretary’ is, rather unfairly, the Clark
Kent \/ Peter Parker paradigm, or rather,
‘glasses-wearer by day, superhero by
night’. Compare this to the excellent
typist who ditches the glasses only to show her
employer that, actually, she does<\/span> enjoy sex (hmmm…
enjoying sex \/ saving the world…).<\/p>\n
Moreover, the weakness myopia is seen to
connote in men is generally considered more
attractive than the dowdiness it suggests in
women – ‘You don’t think
they make me look like an old maid?’
worries Marilyn-Pola, through her Dame Ednas,
as does Bette Davis pre-makeover in Now,
Voyager<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(1942)\u00a0–
and millionaire-seeking once again in
Some Like It Hot<\/strong>, Marilyn hopes
\u2018her\u2019 man will have glasses.
\u2018Men who wear glasses are so much
more gentle, sweet and helpless\u2019, she
says. Indeed, there’s even a sense
here that a man with glasses becomes less
frightening or powerful, less brashly
‘male’. The only disadvantage
for Marilyn is that when she kisses the
one she finds, his glasses steam
up.<\/p>\n
But perhaps she has something when, in
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes<\/strong>
she asserts to her (bespectacled)
groom\u2019s disapproving father
\u2013 who sees right through her
gold-digging tricks – \u2018Don\u2019t
you know that a man being rich is like
a woman being pretty? You
wouldn\u2019t marry a woman just
because she\u2019s pretty but, my
goodness, doesn\u2019t it
help?!\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0 If a
woman\u2019s face is her fortune, best
not to cover it with glasses,
eh?<\/p>\n
But actually, I think the time has
come to take that as exactly the
nonsense it is. Seeing is sexy. Wear
your glasses with pride.<\/p>\n