illustrations and photography
by Talia Shulze
Our first project, “Making a Plaid,” wasn’t so much art as it was a room full of eight-year-olds sniffing markers, but man, I never felt so alive. Now is your chance to recreate this pivotal milestone of my childhood and feel the limitless possibility of public school arts and crafts in five easy steps.
You will need:
Mermaids
In Mermaids, the polka dot is practically the main spot-blowing character. Rachel Flax is a gorgeous, sexy, modern woman with two matching polka dot dresses: one pink, one blue, all wiggle. She wears dots when she smokes a cig on the street:
When she demurely enters a room:
And when she brashly flirts with her next conquest:
Later, the polka dot dresses show up again—this time when her daughter Charlotte’s feeling naughty:
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Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead
Still, polka is not a symbol of unilateral joy. Polka dots also expose absurdity and painful truths. They can rip open wounds at the most inopportune times. Sure, Sue Ellen Crandell was wearing polka dots during her career-woman transformation in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead:
but wearing them was also a source of humiliation at Clown Dog (and her mortification at the movie’s end, when her estranged boyfriend Brian unwittingly blows up her spot):
Pretty Woman
The polka dot can be a false sense of armor, only to explode in a
million tiny pieces. Take Vivian in Pretty Woman. She’s having the time of her life at the polo game, embracing a rare chance to be “Cinda-fuckin-rella”:
Yet that same moment—where she charms the pants off one stiff WASP after another—precedes the ickiest exchange in the movie, perhaps of all time, where Stuckey reminds her that no matter how many adorable polka dot dresses she wears, the world sees her as a whore. Spot(s) blown.
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