The part in Alice’s prompt about how certain experiences with art, good or bad, can leave a permanent mark on your very personhood, immediately transported me back to my visit to London's National Portrait Gallery this past May. One painting in particular stands out in my mind even more so than the glorious slew of Canalettos I admired that day, depicting in extraordinary detail the city of Venice at its absolute finest. Instead, an image irksome enough to bring me to halt resurfaced, as if conjured by Alice’s question, along with the anger it had prompted upon first view. If the title of the painting alone is not enough of a clue as to why I was bothered — Pompeo Batoni’s Time orders Old Age to destroy Beauty — perhaps the following description that accompanied it will: “Time, the winged figure holding an hourglass, orders his companion Old Age to disfigure the face of a young woman, the personification of beauty.” 

Yes, this painting is from the 18th century, and as Alice rightly pointed out when I shared it with her, the expectation for diversity that exists today was simply not top of mind for neither this white male artist, nor the (presumably also white, definitely very privileged) person that commissioned him. But the way that it loomed over me like a threat is what disturbed me more than the artwork itself.  While the visual of an older woman clawing at the porcelain-like skin of her younger counterpart is more obvious than, say, an incomprehensibly glamorous celebrity hawking anti-wrinkle creams with $100 price tags, the cultural messaging remains the same. Standing beneath this brutal reminder that a woman’s value is inextricably linked to her youthfulness, I wondered about how far we’ve really strayed from the centuries-old social mores tethering women to destructive standards of attractiveness. When will the wrinkles we acquire as we age be recognized as the parts of ourselves where beauty gathers? When will they no longer be the trait used as a menacing marker of undesirability that's visible both in this painting and in the countless ads currently populating physical and digital platforms alike? 

The context in which we are consuming art is essential to its power, and it’s worth noting that I was observing the painting in question while the pressure to have children as soon as possible seems to have swelled since I got married. For women who, like me, are approaching their 30s, entering this new decade can often feel like navigating a minefield of polite yet intrusive inquiries about plans for motherhood. And with those inquiries, the reminders that fertility doesn’t last forever — as if the world would let us forget it. But if in this never-ending race against time, as portrayed in Batoni’s ominous painting, we’re conditioned to believe there is always something to be lost or wasted, we’re thus conditioned to be afraid of our own biology. Perhaps the fact that my instinctual response to this image was one of anger rather than fear is, in and of itself, a promising sign of progress. Perhaps our minds are far ahead of our media. AR

Only when Alice asked this question did I realize how much the 1977 film 3 Women bookends my love of actress Shelley Duvall, along with Faerie Tale Theatre. This isn’t just because 3 Women was the last of her works I had to see (Faerie Tale Theatre being the first), but because it plays with the core of her talent. Which is just… being herself. 

Duvall proved that you could be a string bean with googly eyes, and still command a room. She had this blueprint for a sex appeal that wasn’t preoccupied with sex, and belonged to that crop of jolie laid actors that thrived in the 1970s (headed by Anjelica Huston) and which still pops up (see: Adam Driver) now and again in actors whose features and mannerisms almost feel at odds with themselves and the world, but come together in inimitable harmony. The same can be said of 3 Women. 

The movie follows the hum-drum lives of (you guessed it) three women, played by Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule, in a dusty California town. The vibe is uncomfortable. Immaculate. The mood board is filled with butter yellows, dust and gauze; pastels, mauve and concrete. Drama ensues. 

It’s kind of film that gets drunk on its own energy, and then slaps itself into a straight, if not blurry, narrative line that some critics have called “watery,” “impressionistic,” and “atonal”; all of which is true, though I think its atonality is less about emotional removal, as it is discord and survival. We watch the ways these women grapple with how they’re supposed to love each other, hate each other and (spoiler) sometimes bury one another’s men. This is always done with subtlety, thanks in large part to Duvall’s brutal comedic timing. 

“I have seen it many times, been through it twice in shot-by-shot analysis,” wrote film critic Roger Ebert in 2004, who likened the film to a reoccurring dream, “and yet it always seems to be happening as I watch it.” Diddo, dude. But as a woman, I also see that insistent regeneration as a cautionary tale: Never stop exploring the women in your life, because they’ll never stop exploring themselves, and because no one knows what being a woman really means. MFK