From 19 through 25 March, 2007, the New York Post covered Naomi Campbell’s community service.  From her defiantly glamorous wardrobe to her fashion shoot on the job, the paparazzi were there to cover every photo-worthy moment.  To cap it off, on 25 March 2007, the New York Post Page Six Snaps section estimated each day’s wardrobe, reporting a whopping $25K total, not including her Dolce & Gabanna “Friday Finale” silver-corseted chainmail gown.

Not to be outdone, The New York Times Sunday Styles section published an article by Guy Trebay on 25 March 2007, aptly titled, “La Campbell Proves That Beauty Makes Its Own Rules”.  In his article, Trebay rather acclaims Campbell for “[t]urning a community service sentence into a fashion statement.”  He dares to link her with “famous beauties of the ages” including the 18th Century Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Diana Cooper, and Louise Brooks.  He then extols Campbell for her “moxie”, explaining that she “…represents something more potent…some quality that never seems to go out of vogue.  She has moxie, of a sort that only people whose molecules are arranged as perfectly as hers are able to claim.  Beauty operates according to its own rules.  Everybody knows that”  (bold added for emphasis).

Oh, really? 

What we need here is not sycophantism, but rather a good, strong, and hard look at ‘reality’ as it is today.  (Please!)

According to dictionary.com, “moxie” comes from a 1925-30 Americanism (a slang) after a trademark for a soft drink, and can mean any of the following: vigor, verve, pep, courage, aggressiveness, nerve, skill, know-how, the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage, aggressive energy, or initiative.

Since when is defiant arrogance and an almost aristocratic sense of entitlement a show of courage, pep, or know-how?  Since when is haute couture a badge of diplomatic immunity? 

Since the cult of celebrity circa the 1950s.

Where there is capitalism there can be no democracy.  Equality in a capitalist society becomes a mere illusory mirage nested upon the pedestal of hierarchy, arrogance, money, greed, the cult of power, and at its heart - the cult of celebrity.  This is the American reality: a ‘democracy’ that is aristocratic and a value system without worth - open-hearted acceptance of the illusion, rather than the real.  Just as its ‘democracy’ is a shell, so too is its façade but a hologram of what it stands to be.  This is the bitter ‘blue pill’ the hyphenation paradox exposes.

When ‘reality’ consists of exteriority, the tyranny of glamour, and when “moxie” is used and published as a malapropism, we can no longer find solace in what is.  Rather, we must run to the nearest virtuality, the closest hyphenation, because that is the only last bastion of hope for our society.  At least in virtuality and the hyphen, we can see, acknowledge, and work with potentiality and even empower ourselves to enable and to realize our ideal.  When ‘beauty’ today is nothing but a hyped-up spoon-fed image of painted faces – maskery – we must look to our past, to Aristotle, who stated that truth is beauty and beauty, truth, and ask ourselves what has happened to us?   

Do we dare look behind the mask to uncover our hidden truth(s)?  Do we even know what the truth is anymore?

Perhaps when ‘reality’ is the sham and the hyphen that exposes this truth is the real beauty, then the means towards this self-realization, this unmasking, is the truth.  In other words, perhaps the process of unmasking is the Reality – the Truth – and in this Truth lies the beautiful unfolding.  And that is True Beauty. 

Courage and true moxie in this process and to those daring to embark upon this journey!