it's beautiful to die

This just in! The tragic & beautiful dead girl!

Evelyn Francis McHale’s decision to end her life was shrouded by mystery. Her body laid on the crushed hood of a United Nations Assembly Cadillac limousine. She had leapt from the Empire State building and fell 86 floors to her death. Most would be horrified by the sight. Yet, they weren’t. They saw something completely different. They saw her long legs that sprawled out on the indent of the car, lipstick stained lips, eyes delicately shut. They saw something that was beautiful.

The note she left behind lacked any explanation but pleaded with the readers to not let, “anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me.”, and begged for her body to be turned to ash. But, of course that did not happen.

Instead a man by the name of Robert Wiles took a photo of her corpse which lives on to be considered one of the most “iconic portraits of suicide”. Subsequently her the image of her corpse would circulate in a print created by Andy Worhol entitled Suicide (Fallen Body). A pretty on the nose title, but does an excellent job of reducing her to a body. 

This image is forever immortalized by the advertisements and media that replicate the image of a woman with her limbs seductively sprawled out on the hood of a car. Even being replicated by the likes of HR Sensitivity trained feminist, Taylor Swift.

She’s an icon, so to speak. A beautiful tragedy. But, this is not how she wanted to be remembered. Her bodily autonomy and explicit desires were ignored. To this day, her image lingers even though her name has mostly disappeared. Though, there are “fan theories” surrounding her motive to commit suicide that remain on certain corners of the internet. 

Unfortunately, to be sexualized to the point of dehumanization is a fate most women will meet. The strength of the male gaze is unavoidable and pervasive through our culture that a woman committing a horrifically tragic act has been warped to some sexual fantasy.

As a woman, you are a commodity. Your body, mind, and soul are in a constant state of objectification and sexualization by prying eyes of individuals and corporations. Most of the women we see are two-dimensional billboards. Pouty lips, long limbs, seductive eyes. Evelyn wished to not have her dead body on display, but now her body is forever immortalized as, “the most beautiful suidice”. As if it were a competition, like a Miss America Pageant. Oh my god, where would I rank?!

Yet, death and beauty have been intertwined for women. Throughout history even, there has been a fascination with the dead or dying woman in our cultural narrative and fashion.

The Victorians watched how their loved ones died by a slow, harrowing illness they knew as Consumption. This illness, that we now know as Tuberculosis, attacks the lungs and other vital organs. Its victims slowly waste away. Pale, fragile, thin, fever-red cheeks. To them, it was beautiful. This corpse-like appearance bled into their every-day fashion.

During this era of pain and suffering, there was an increased romanticization of tuberculosis that transformed into the ideal aesthetic feminine beauty. Instead, women began emulating this emaciated, ill figure through their fashion and appearance. Women began making their faces paler, lip and cheek redder, and figures more and more emaciated to pronounce their collar bones. All to achieve the appearance of a beautiful corpse. 

With a resurgence of Heroin Chic and increasingly skinny bodies from former voluptuous celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Julia Fox, and Doja Cat- it seems that we are back to loving the aesthetics of a dying woman. Or, maybe we never really stopped. In its modern interpretation it’s dark under eye circles, a cigarette dangling from mauve lips, thick eyeliner, and a protruding collarbone. This body is typically achieved form restrictive diets, stimulant-use, or anorexia. Which causes the subject to have the appearance of withering away. Even today, it’s beautiful to emulate a walking corpse. 

There’s much intrigue surrounding the “dead woman”. Which, often is men projecting their fantasies onto a body rather than a living, breathing figure. From Dead Girls Essays on Surviving an American Obsession the author, Alice Bolin, theorized the dead woman is the perfect canvas for a man to paint his own story on. To the man, the dead woman is simply a catalyst to work on through their own experiences and pain.

We don’t just like the Heroin Chic girl for their appearance. We like what their appearance tells us. Their mysterious aura is derived from their perceived intelligence and cultured sensibilities. Their wisdom derives from their perceived suffering and pain. They’re cool, suffering, burned by the troubles that plague the world in a way we could never understand.

The dying woman is easy to love. She’s a tragic, sympathetic figure that your heart can break over. She’s mysterious and wise, not like the other women who still care about frivolous things that are tied to simple mortality- fancy dinners, expensive clothes. The dying woman could care less. The dying woman is absolved of all sin. Another perk, she also never gets old. Instead, she is embalmed in her youth and beauty. 

So, people love the dying woman for her deepness, wisdom, and thoughts, but what are they exactly like, specifically? Well they don’t actually care. It’s really about the alluring fantasy of it all. It’s about how they perceive the woman and their position in her life. Why actually try to understand a woman when you could romanticize a dead one instead?

Emblematic of Sofia Coppola’s film, Virgin Suicides, where the male protagonists romantically gawk and admire the Lisbon sisters as they each reach their demise. Never really speaking to them, or getting inside their head. Even we as the audience of the movie never really get much insight as to why each sister decides to end their own life. Instead we are positioned as the male audience of the sisters- gawking at their beauty. Romanticizing their demise by projecting our made-up fantasies onto them. 

Perhaps the reason women are reduced to such aesthetics instead of complex beings is because of the ancient idea that women are truly the “Second-Sex” and are just incomplete men. This was first postured by Aristolte, the meanest gay man in all of history. Women are seen truly as just bodies. If we’ve learned anything from the most recent overturn of Roe v Wade, women are vessels to give birth to most people. They don’t care if you will die bringing a pregnancy to term, you are just a body to them. 

Maybe to men, women sacrifice themselves or die one way or another. Either through death or birth. Perhaps it’s the male-projected typical “female” biological destiny of giving birth and raising kids, where women are expected to give up their whole selves to become a mother. Though, this perception is false. It’s a skewed perception and heavily ‘masculine’ perception of what it means to be a person. Through rigorous individualism and pursuit of wealth, men perhaps see this venture into motherhood as the ultimate sacrifice of self. How could you be a person when your destiny is to make another person? But, you never really stop being you. Your thoughts, fears, little musings, desires, don’t disappear, they can’t. They evolve and change perhaps, but they don’t go away. But, that’s just the just that is misunderstood. Seeing the woman as a whole being. It’s too hard to think about for some. Maybe this is the reason men don’t see women as people and would rather see them die young and beautiful. 

In return, people will follow trend that adopt the aesthetics of the corpse in order to attract and captivate others. The ol’ song and dance. Perhaps that is why we have a whole subset of girls that romanticize their own suffering shrouded with lace and knee-high socks.

I don’t know if this will ever end, but in the meantime death is beautiful and the male gaze will outlive you. So, start thinking about how you will have your corpse positioned. Maybe make sure your nails are painted pretty too.