Holy Glitter Zine
special
Holy Glitter Zine GIRLS Special February 2017 Created and edited by Fleur Stiels www.holyglitterzine.blogspot.com All original artwork and text belong to Fleur Stiels and the other contributors, mentioned below
A big thank you to the lovely contributors! Mayke Peeters - instagram @maykepeeters Marie-Neige - instagram @morbitchh Tom Weller - instagram @tokyo.beach or @sullengirluk Shannon Hardwick - instagram @shannon.carol Kamila Krรณl - instagram @pigeonxgirl Angel Sunlight - instagram @angelsunlight
Welcome glittery inhabitants of planet earth This might be the most kitschiest issue so far (yes, even more kitschy than the actual Kitschy Magic issue!). When I think of girls, I think of all the diversity that comes to mind: girly girls, independent girls, tough girls, sensitive girls, cute girls, nerdy girls, talented girls, boss girls, smart girls, beautiful girls! I absolutely love the girls world! With this special I would love to show the diverse sides of being a girl. Okay, this special mainly focuses on the kitschy girls (perhaps because I’m an extremely kitschy one!), but there are also cool, sad and badass girls in here. Let’s celebrate the world of girls! p.s. A big shoutout to my bestie Mayke, for sharing her wonderful talents. She has modelled, wrote an amazing piece AND made some very cheeky cross stitch art for this special. Thank you, Maykie!
xxx Fleur
Content Oscar Wilde Girls collage page 5 girlsquad playlist page 6 illustrations Female Diversity by Kamila Król page 8 photo series A Few Of My Favourite Things page 12 article Girls & Cinema by Marie-Neige page 22 DIY: Crybaby necklace (inspired by Melanie Martinez) page 24 cross stitch artwork by Mayke Peeters page 28 photo series A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shannon Hardwick page 30 essay Salty by Mayke Peeters page 40 photo series Sullen Girl (ID) by Tom Weller page 44 story American Fry by Angel Sunlight page 54 photo series Sugar & Spice page 62 Girls Book Club page 78 Sad Girl movie stills page 80
s l r i g way ly find her n o n a c o he r is one wh punishment is that s e m a e r d A er world ight, and h rest of the by moonl e th e r fo e de wn b - Oscar Wil sees the da
collage by Fleur
Female diversity
illustrations by Kamila Krรณl
a glitching photo series by Fleur
GIRLS & CINEMA text by Marie-Neige || photo by Fleur
The following report is related to the gender inequality in the film industry. Currently, only 20% of women have made it to work as filmmakers. However, last year over the 50% of moviegoers were women. Then, why the hell are we not making half of the movies as well? When it comes to the way a girl & her body are portrayed, very often she is victim of sexualitation. Strong and prestigious female characters are as common as male characters based on their appearance. This means films represent sexuality from straight men’s point of view. Consequently, actresses’ roles are limited to be the male main character’s object of desire and once they turn forty and something, to be someone’s mom. A very few commercial films empower women, specially in action films. Tarantino does so and he is unfairly tagged as “misogynic” and “fetishist” for involving violence and girls in movies such as “Kill Bill” and “Death Proof ”. I guess audiences do not find girls cute with blood all over their face! If film business is sexist in front of cameras, that is because it is also from behind. Only three women have been nominated to best director during the Oscar’s history. And wasn’t until 2009 when Katheryn Bigelow became the first female director to win the award for her film “The Hurt Locker”. Although a high rate of women workers finds a job as costume designers, the chances for their fellows developing a career in departments like production, script writing, direction and so on, is little. On the whole, we can pretty much assure film industry is a patriarchy. To this date, Sweden has been the only country whose industry has invested in film projects by women, as well as in cinematographic formation for young girls. As a result, the number of Swedish film directors is equal for both genres. All in all, it doesn’t really matter who’s behind the camera as long as the film is good. But it is such a coincidence it always has to be a heterosexual white man.
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a Melanie Martinez inspired DIY by Fleur
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cross stitch artwork by Mayke Peeters
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by F d e t i d e ||
text by Mayke Peeters || photo by Fleur, modelled by Mayke
Raindrops splash against my window and roll down, glistening. The sky’s so beautiful when she cries. One doubtful sunbeam reflects the shimmer of her tears on my pastel pink colored walls. The tattoo on my inner wrist then immediately fades in the shadow of the looming, gray clouds. Its lines normally form a rose, with leafs close together. Now the thorns are cominating and stinging my skin. Only at this point I discover my own very first tear of today leaving my eye as I blink. In my mind I can already see the transparent purple line it will leave on my chin after gently stroking my dark purple colored lips. It’s okay. Everything isn’t always going to be all right. My feelings are valid. Eventhough they sometimes feel like a layer of crackling ice that covers my entire body. I can break through as soon as I want. My sizzling salty tears will melt the icy harness away.
photos by Fleur
‘ID’ photo series by Tom Weller: Sullen Girl || edited by Fleur
artwork by Fleur
American Fry
Note: Holy Glitter Zine isn’t just about happy and sparkly times. Sometimes it’s important to share stories that are emotional, sad and more serious. I received this story by Angel a long time ago and always doubted wether I should feature it in the zine or not. But now I know that stories like this have to be shared as well, especially when it’s as well-written as this piece. Please take the time to read the whole text, but WARNING: this story is very intense. If you feel the need to chat with someone after reading this, feel free to contact me via holyglitterzine@gmail.com. -x- Fleur
story by Angel Sunlight Stella is not like me. FIrst of all, she’s a Brit. She moved here when she was a kid but still managed to keep her accent, despite the American culture that was thrusted on to her...the hamburgers she ate two at a time but never that “bullshit apple pie” when I’d take her to McDonalds...all the baseball games we’d attended, pretending to understand the game when really we were only there to look at the cute boys...and how we’d watch American cinema, those old Hollywood movies. The movies with Marilyn were always Stella’s favorite, while I admired those of Audrey Hepburn or Ava Gardner. Stella said she could relate to Marilyn’s pain, very much so. And soon, as her body began to grow, she could relate to that aspect of the curvy movie star, too. I don’t remember when it happened, it seemed overnight, but Stella, a chubby youth, shed most of her baby fat...And in return it grew back in all those places that movies and books say “make you a woman.” Stella’s wide hips and voluptuous breasts contrasted her skinny waist...and my pole thin skinny body. Suddenly, all the boys wanted a date with Stella...but she mostly stayed away from them. Except one night, when she and her body caused her a great deal of pain. (Her words not mine.) I was sleeping when she sent me the text but when I woke up to the dark sky the next morning, my phone wouldn’t stop ringing. It was Stella’s mom. I answered. She seemed distressed, said Stella hadn’t come home all night, and wondered if she was with me. I told her, no, she wasn’t. “She never doesn’t come home unless she calls me and tells me.” The pain and desperation in her in her mother’s voice picked me up the ground and shook me. But I reassured her that Stella was okay. Last night was a Friday night, after all.
“We have to find her!” Her mother cried. “Don’t worry, we will.” And it was like that. I hung up, looking at my message that Stella had sent me while I was asleep. I knew where she was. I called her mother back and told her, don’t worry, I found out where she was last night, and I was going to get her back. When I knocked on the door of the house it was storming hard.I hoped Stella would be there. I wished deeply it’d be a night of too many drinks or too much weed smoked, a night where the nearest bed was your bed for the night. I hoped it was a night too late to get back to the buses, a crash on the couch. A consensual sleepover, even. But when nobody answered the door, despite my loud (and soon louder) knocking, I began to worry. What if something bad had happened to her? I looked down at my shoes. Then I turned around and looked at the houses behind me. Boarded up windows and trash littered in the gutter. A rooster crowed in the distance. I was no longer in the suburbs. A second later, out of nowhere, I heard something...footsteps to the door, a few seconds of the sounds of unlocking various locks, and when the door finally opened, it opened to Stella. She smiled and shut the door behind her. She grabbed me and held on to me for deal life. Then she stepped away. When I got a good look at her, I saw that she looked trashed. Her beautiful blonde hair astray, her big eyes slanted. No makeup, except for the coats mascara she put on the night before, now smudged and drippy in the morning sunlight. She looked at me and with a smile said “I did something bad last night!” And laughed. Her voice seemed shaky, so did the rest of her body. She seemed to still be drunk from the night before. “I see...your mom’s looking for you. She was really worried.” “Well,” she said, “I’m ready to go home. Let me just go back in there and find my boots and purse.” As just like that she opened the door and slipped back inside. And she was gone again, into that monster of a house. When she came back, not 20 seconds later, a red heart shaped purse, black Doc Martins, and a large denim jacket in hand, Stella slammed the door behind her and we walked down the steps. Her eyes darted around at all the houses. “I’ve never been in this neighborhood before,” she told me. She was quiet the rest of the way in the car. She didn’t say much, just watched all the houses in the neighborhood go by. She watched the rain drip off the car window. I took her home, her mom was beside herself. Stella proved to her that she was ok and then she marched straight into the shower. I lingered outside, itting on the fluffy raspberry colored toilet lid cover. Stella talked to me as she washed. I listened to her go on and on about how drunk she was last night. How the beer she had made her seem overly tipsy and how she thought it odd.
Then out of nowhere, she asked; “Do you think I need to take the morning after pill?” This kind of question surprised me. Stella wasn’t usually the one to have a one night stand. So she did fuck someone last night. “If you think you need it.” I told her. Silence. That’s when she pulled the shower curtain back, the steam floated off the scolding hot running water. “I had sex last night,” she blinked at me. “But I didn’t want to.” I looked at her then. Trying to process what I had just heard. I could feel all of the blood in my face drain. “What do you mean, ‘didn’t want to?’” “Well, I mean, obviously I would never have sex with him. He forced me to.” “He raped you?” “Is that-” She turned around, now realizing the shower had been running this whole time, and shut the water off. I watched her. I watched her until she looked at me and then said “Do you wanna smoke a bowl?” Stella stood naked in front of me, her body wet from the shower. The hot water dripping off the body she calls “fat” and what boys call “beautiful.” “Yeah.” “Well, it started like this...I ran into him on my way back from San Francisco.. asked me if I wanted a beer. I told him sure. We went to his apartment, I vaguely remember going there, I was already sort of drunk, he said we could just hang out and listen to music and drink a 40 ounces and shit.” I watched her as I lit the pipe for her. She inhaled the smoke and blew it out. “We were just chilling, and he kept talking to me about how sad he was...sad! That’s something I can relate to...so anyways, he’s sad. Sad over his father’s abandonment, sad over his friends, sad over a girl that just broke his heart. And you know that I know what that’s like...having a broken heart, I felt bad for him.” “Yeah?” I watched her with a frown, knowing it wouldn’t be long until the bad part of Stella’s story came. “Well, he made a couple jokes during the night of having sex with me, like the one I texted you, but I thought it wasn’t out of the ordinary...a lot of men want to have sex with me to be honest. I mean…I don’t mean to sound narcissistic but-” “No. A lot of guys do want to have sex with you Stella, you’re gorgeous, really. Go on.” “Well, I didn’t think anything of it---never thought it, even if he wanted to fuck me, I never thought he’d force himself on me.I only thought he’d needed a friend. But the drunker I got the more my judgement got bad and I told him I’d meet him half way-----we could take a bath together, but that’s it! He drew a bath, and the water was cold, so he said he wouldn’t get in. So I undressed and got in the bath and he left me alone.”
“Okay.” I passed her the pipe. “Then what happened?” “I stayed in the bath, I don’t remember for how long. And-” She took the pipe from me, shivered. “I walked back into his room. I was really cold and really naked, you know? So I sat down on the edge of the bed. I felt kinda sick, too. I wrapped my Beastie Boys jacket around me. Then he said something weird about me being wet and so I teased him back. ‘Why don’t you warm me up then?’ But it was the wrong thing to say, Brenda, it was a wrong thing to say. Oh shit.” She started to cry. “It was the wrong thing to say, it was the wrong thing to say. It was the wrong thing to say. Oh shit!” I held on to her. “Hey, Stella, it’s okay, man, I mean, it’s not, but it’s going to be. Can you tell me the rest of what happened?” She looked at me, my arm around her shoulder, my smile so insincere because watching her cry made me want to cry, too. “Well, I thought we were just gonna cuddle” she wiped the corner of her eye with a sleeve. “I said to him, ‘No I didn’t mean warm up like this. But he kept on. I told him, No I don’t want to have sex with you! And I tried pushing him away from me but he had me pinned down on my back and I kept saying no but it was too late and-” She looked at me staring at her. “It was too late.” I just looked at her as she explained more. “I wasn’t wet. I wasn’t wet so it hurt. And I begged him to stop. I said, it hurts, it hurts, and he told me to call him ‘daddy.’ I said, please stop and then finally, well, finally I said ‘ Please let me go! I need to piss, I need to piss so bloody bad!’” I just looked at her. I didn’t know what to say, and if I did, I didn’t know how to say it. “And he pulled out and looked down at me and I looked up at him and he looked down at me and said ‘Hurry up, I’m not done with you.’” I looked at my best friend and something looked different about her. Not really her looks, I mean, she didn’t look like her normal self, no makeup on, no fancy outfits. Just a peace pipe and a wet cheeked-face. But that’s not what looked different about her. I guess maybe it was the look in her eyes..the serious look in her eyes that told me that this was no joke. Just by the way she looked at me, I knew she was telling the truth. It’s like the time when she told me she was in love (on the account that he was the first boy our age she was able to eat a whole pizza in front of) or like the time she told me she knew where babies come from (on the account of that’s what her doctor in England told her when she’d been sexually abused as a child.) These types of looks are stone cold serious and only comes from the truth. “Well...has the pot got you all quiet?” Stella looked at me. I looked at her. “Nah, I’m just, listening. I’m just, processing. Please continue.” “So I didn’t know what to do...I dont even remember walking back to that room... but I knew I had to. Not sure why.
I had to obey him I mean, I didn’t know where to go, you know? I would have been kidnapped, naked in the East like that. It was so late, too late, no buses were running, nothing. I don’t really remember walking back into that room, honestly I don’t. I was so shocked...even this morning...so scared. I walked back and then there was more sex and I was half conuious, by that point, I mean, really. I just remember he kept saying, ‘I’ve wanted this for so long. I know this probably is my only chance.’” Stella, eyes soaked with tears as she remembered this, looked straight ahead. “He kept touching my hips, saying ‘i’ve never been with a thick White girl before.’ I don’t know if I was drugged or just really sleepy but I remember at one point he pulled out and had this bottle in his hand and I said ‘What the fuck are you putting on me? No. Don’t use that, use your spit” because he was gonna have his way anyways and once I tried lube and it made my vagina burn. And when he pulled out there was cum everywhere and..that really scared me. I mean, I was bloody scared. ‘Oh shit oh shit I’m gonna get pregnant oh shit oh shit oh shit’ and he told me to calm down. He told me that he couldn’t get me pregnant, that he smoked too much weed for that.” Stella paused. Turned to look at me looking at her. Our eyes met, then she looked away, looked up. “Well, I was on my stomach. And then he said “I’m hard again, you know that means.’ I don’t remember if I was asleep or drugged or what it was. He fucked me like a dog.” I looked at her, my teeth gritting. I knew I couldn’t hide my emotions from Stella, I knew of the look of anger in my eyes. Of intense sadness. “Oh god!” Stella exclaimed, still looking up at the sky. “It’s all my fault! It’s my fault..” I turned to her. “Stella, this isn’t your fault. It’s not your fault because he’s a rapist. You understand that, right? This was rape.” “The bath! I didn’t need to show him my body. The bath! I said warm me up!” “You could have given him a strip tease and it still would have been rape if you told him no---” “Begged him.” She breathed out. “--you begged him no and he still did it. He’s raped you.” Stella suddenly looked at me. “I’m not going to the police.” “Why not?” “Because, oh god! When I was kid, oh shit, when I was a little girl, back then, what that guy did to me...the police didn’t believe me. My father didn’t believe me.” She began to cry then, my friend, the pretty girl, cried the kind of cry that hits so hard it comes from deep inside and rattles out. The kind of cry that makes you quiver to get a breath out. The kind of cry that makes you wonder about God existing. I held her close to me and she looked up at me. “I told him about that...I told him
about it before the bath. He asked me about my father after he told me about his and---he raped me. He knew I was a vulnerable person.” This is when I wasn’t looking at her anymore. I couldn’t. This is when I was looking straight ahead. My jaw locked. My eyes wide open. “It’s alright, Stella, you don’t have to go to the police.” And then I held her as she cried in my arms. That following week I stayed with her. She threw up the next morning, and we went to the pharmacy and got the morning after pill. She threw up the morning after that, and I kept her high to help the pain. She’d say things like; “I told him what happened to me when I was a kid---and he raped me.” “Is it sad that I wanted him to tell me that he loved me?” “I didn’t need to show him my body.” I’d always remind her on the latter that it wasn’t her or her body’s fault. I’d explain to her that people have urges but that doesn’t mean you have to act on them. That rapists rape, not the female body. Rapists rape, not beer. Rapists rape, not baths. The morning three days after the rape, Stella awoke sick again. I held her hair back as she threw up in the sink, cried. I smoked her out. She called her friend she’d met in summer school, last year, when I’d had a job. Stella walked around the block as she talked on the phone, explaining the rape. “I have to go to the hospital.” Stella concluded when she hung up. And walked up the steps of her house. “And I need to tell the police. It’ll prevent it happening to another girl.” So I took her. Nothing came from Stella filing a police report. Nothing came of the rape kit they tested. No one came to pick up the panties we placed in a bag with a piece of paper bearing the name “EVIDENCE” given to us from the Oakland Police Department, just as we’d been told. Stella grew angry but held it inside, held it so well, for no one could see it, even if it ran deep, from where the sobs came from. Something changed in Stella’s personality, too. She started going out more, actually beginning to have one night stands. She laughed. She drank, she danced; to Motown, East Side Oldies, Britney Spears. She seemed happier than ever. The last time I saw Stella was when she came over to my house. It was getting late. She asked to borrow my car. “What?” I laughed, a little stoned. “Can. I. Borrow. Your. Car?” “What do you need my car for?” “Well, you see, I’m going to the movies with this boy and I don’t feel like walking.”
“Why can’t he pick you up? “He’s walking there himself.” I looked at her. “Let me drive you there.” “Don’t be ridiculous, you’re as high as a fucking kite.” I looked at her and laughed. She started to reach for my keys which hung by my door. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to it. Please?” “Okay. But wait---” I got off of the bed I was sitting on and walked over to her. She didn’t smell like alcohol, her eyes were not red like when she’s high. Oddly, it’s the most sober I’d seen her in a while. “What?” I looked at her and smiled. “No fucking in my backseat.” She smiled back. “Does 69ing count?” They say it happened at 2. I was asleep. By 2:30, they found her. By 2:45, it was on breaking news. By 5, they’d identified her. By morning, it was on CNN. Someone caught her on video jumping off the hotel while they were filming a nearby fireworks show. They called 911. Showed the police the iPhone video. Stella, beautiful Stella, jumping off this building while a bright orange firework bursted in the background. If anything, it is just like Stella to go out with a bang. The headline read: 20 Year Old Woman Jumps Off San Francisco Skyscraper I saw the video. It made my stomach turn. I went into the city and walked around the block where it happened. The hotel was closed, everything blocked off. The news reporters were all there, getting the story out to all of America. This made me sick. I found my car a few blocks away. She had parked it safely. It was just how I’d left it, perfect condition, only Stella had left something on the seat. It was an empty container of McDonald’s fries, the same kind we used to eat, and an apple pie left (for me?) A Post-it left on the dashboard that read: “My body, like Marilyn’s, has been my downfall.” Of course, nobody ever expects suicide. It usually comes on quick. Never slow. But Stella wasn’t a live fast die young type. Stella secretly dreamed of being a movie star, a poet, a mother. Stella was smart, in ways a lot of people weren’t. She was free about nudity, about sex, about love. She thought all colors and all races were beautiful, especially when mixed. She read the newspaper almost every day. Did she realize that she would soon be splashed across national newspapers everywhere? Stella gave homeless women money and often, for nearly everyone that asked, her cigarettes. She helped so many people, even with just her smile. With just the way she looked. And just as her body was not the cause of her rape, her looks are not
what killed her. The patriarchal society in which we grow up in did. This society that tells us our bodies are sexual tools. That our bodies should be kept away, hidden, and only seen for sexual purposes. That taking a bath or being in the nude means you were “asking for it.” That No Means No has exceptions. That the police believe the rapists more often than the victim. The police, whose questions can seem stupid at first “Why were you there in the first place? and “Why did you have a drink with him?” to downright offensive “Why did you walk back into his room after he let you go?” Because no one besides a survivor can understand “pretending to like it” or “giving in” or the damage these types of things causes. The French fries container from McDonalds is hung up on my wall, as if Marilyn herself had eaten from it. I held on to the apple pie for a while, but I ended up eating it, grinding the stale American speciality in my teeth as I rode up the elevator, 51 floors. I made my way up to the very top of the hotel. The 51st floor was the last floor, the roof. The very roof that Stella had jumped off of. I held the spray paint can in my hand. I tried my best to spray as big and as clear as I could. All the way across the top of that building. It took me a while. 30 minutes, maybe. When I backed away, the top of the hotel read;
My society, like Marilyn’s, has been my downfall
Sugar & Spice photo series by Fleur
modelled by Mayke Peeters
GIRLS BO by Nicola Yoon The story of a terminally ill girl who can never leave the house but loves the otuside world and falls in love with the cute boy next door.
by Siobhan Curham Four young girls, who are strangers to one another, decide to achieve their wildest dreams together and become The Moonlight Dreamers.
by Emma Cline The 70s: a young, bored girl meets a group of wild and bold older girls and gets to live with their cult, led by a strange and dangerous man.
OOK CLUB
by Fleur
by Anna Todd When a good girl starts her freshman year she meets quite a bad boy and, ofcourse, falls for him, even though he’s everything she despises.
by Kiera Cass These sirens are beautiful, smart and... deadly, especially when they sing or speak. They have to serve the Ocean for as long as she desires, which isn’t always that easy...
by Rainbow Rowell Twin sisters who are both obsessed over their idol. That is, until they go to college. One wants to keep being the ultimate fangirl, one doesn’t...
You’ve reached the end of the Girls World I wish to thank you warmly for reading the fourth special of Holy Glitter Zine!
Copyright Š 2017 Holy Glitter Zine Fleur Stiels www.holyglitterzine.blogspot.com