Katja Tukiainen’s Dangerous Girls on Pink – An Interpretation

1.

The circular cotton candy pink postcards, with the girls in pleated skirts saluting and enticing the viewer, were on display a few years ago, when I was visiting Porvoo with my man. I was browsing the lovely and abundant vintage shop Doris & Duke’s unending cornucopia of used jeans, trying to find some that were just perfect for me. My man, tired from our hanging out in the Old Town the day before, was enjoying a quiet moment of solitude outside the store, walking a bit in the horrible early spring’s spritzing rain and slippery cobblestone sidewalks and all-around glumness of the time before the birds migrate and bring the feel of true warmth along, with their sing-song mating and general swifting through the air with the greatest of ease.

The proprietor, and incredibly kind and joyful lady, had the girls on display by the register. I bought a pair of rainy day grey jeans, some beautiful cream and mother-of-pearl and gold bead necklaces, and all of the postcards.

The reclaiming of the color from the conservative flower-hat ladies with collections of pink porcelain pigs all over their houses, on the window sills instead of live plants, or on the bookshelves instead of books, and from the sellers of the unmentionables, who had to all but give up on ordering the bashful pink in small sizes for the young, hip women, but now need to restock, because all the girls are rushing in to get theirs.

Pink has had a horrible reputation for a long time, but let’s face it, pink is the new black. It always was. Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe knew it then, Molly Ringwald and St. Vincent and Emiliana Torrini know it now.

The fashionistas, along with the rest, are studying their coffee table books of old pictures of Paris, with the soundtrack of Kaufman’s Henry & June playing in the background, dressed in bashful pink brassieres and hot pink hipsters, or some lace strings and blush pink Nike training tops. When the record is played through, they put on Nick Drake, and walk around the apartment, dreaming of summer. Nick Drake wanted life to be made out of magic and soft light, of patience and artistry, but he asked us not to forget that the black-eyed dog is waiting for us all.

When he sings his song about the pink moon, I always think of when I first heard him singing, it was in a movie, it always is. Why I think of him at all in connection to those seductresses on pink background, I can’t say. Is it just the mentioning of the color? Or maybe there is some similarity there, in the delicate handling of mysterious material, cloaked in sweetness, yet more substantial than you would at first think.

I was checking out the lingerie section with my very close friend, and she wanted to buy nothing but thin, delicate Simone Pérèles and not at all practical Primadonnas, and recently I have let her have her way, because Mrs. Dalloway deserves to have a little luxury sometimes, lord knows we can’t all the time look like we are about to enter the wrestling mat. We both got to thinking about Claude Monet’s Woman with Parasol, and were quite happy with ourselves, that is, until the first credit card bill arrived.

But I couldn’t wear those striped stockings – because of course they are stockings, do not be fooled, they might look like your run-of-the-mill socks, but these girls know their Lycra and how to use it. I once tried on some of those backseam pantyhose, and struggling to have the seam go straight while they were on was a nightmare. Of course, the candy cane stripes aren’t exactly the same, they do offer some forgiveness for the woman dressing up in a hurry.

When I buy a bouquet of flowers for someone, I always go for the pale pink roses with a bit of pastel green right at the ends of the petals. Peonies is what I would like to get, but they are at their most beautiful growing from the earth, aren’t they? Pink was the color of the liquid antibiotic that everyone who was a kid in Finland in the Seventies or early Eighties remembers with horror. The way the color kept calling us from on top of the counter, only it was clearly medicine and tasted as such, when the day finally came that mother had to hand the little plastic cup filled with it to our waiting hand. We knew it would taste horrible, why try to hide it with the gorgeous hot pink color? I never found the answer.

And the girls with their small teeth and fuchsia colored flat mary janes, and sailor blouses and pigtails, or in giant hair pieces that remind you of Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette, Coppola’s pastel punk goddess, high from eating all those sugar-coated pastries, with a pair of Converse sneakers among the more complex lace-up boots with regal Pompadour heels in her walk-in closet, why not give them names like Bianca or Ariadne, because cotton candy is their favorite, and the harlequin their favorite pattern?

The little coquettes are flirting with the viewer, and they are not victims, but executors of their own fate. They have their tongues out, or they are dancing, or riding their fantastic horses or deer, and the circus is in town, or they are inhabiting and performing a mysterious ceremony in a wonderful, but ominous forest. The girls roam the adventures of their maker, it is like Chagall’s The Promenade, or Amy Hempel’s short stories, deceptively simple, but there is danger there, even, and especially, in the world of fairy tales.

2.

Always leave a trail in the woods, lest you’ll be lost, and if possible, do not use bread crumbs. However, sometimes The Green Man might pick up the small stones left as guideposts to throw you off track.

If Gramma doesn’t seem herself, it is probably because the wolf is in the process of devouring, or has already devoured her.

Always buy apples by the case, never just one that is being handed out to you special.

Don’t eat the gorgeous pink and pearly dream house, lest the owner be furious.

Always check your equipment when beginning to use the spinning wheel, and if the spindle seems funny or smells a little weird, use another one and discard the one that was by the machine.

It is a good idea to let your hair grow long.

Listen to what the fairy godmother is telling you.

The tin heart was once a toy soldier deeply in love, who became undone in a fire, betrayed by one of his own kind.

I lost my innocence when the apple turned out to be poisoned.

I lost both my grandmothers to the wolf, one when she was old, one when she was young.

I lost my faith when the breadcrumbs were lost in the winds.

I lost my beautiful mansion when the intruders started eating my house.

I lost my mind when the spindle pricked my finger.                                                                

I cut my hair when I stopped thinking I needed rescuing.

I was too busy to listen, and now I have not only lost my glass slipper, but I am late and in shambles and hungry, and those bitches who call me Ashtray are going to love beating me with their broomsticks.

I lost my heart when I realized that the love was gone, and not only that, but that I never had it in the first place.

I lost my goodness when the betrayal became evident to me, when they told me I had brought it all on myself.

3.

You can’t hurt us! We are beautiful and whimsical, and we are a vast army! Be careful because we are handy with the cane, and the cane can do damage as it is mouth-watering! We are knowledgeable and strong and you don’t want to mess with us! Fairy tales come true, but never the way you had pictured them! If you aim for the horses, we will blind you with our astounding kick line that will put Moulin Rouge to shame! We will not fall back! You will find us in the most unpredictable and unseemly places, and you will love us! Kindness! Joy! Mischief! Shenanigans! Scented erasers! Hello Kitty figurines! Totoro’s ghost! The Catbus! Kyoko Mizuki’s Candy Candy! Sarah Kay’s vintage girls with equally large heads! The Pink Ladies from Grease! Sia! The young Marquerite Duras’ faded rose colored felt hat in The Lover! Andie Walsh getting dressed in the opening credits montage of Pretty in Pink! We are Carrie and Charlotte and Miranda and Samantha, and we are Hannah and Marnie and Shoshanna and Jessa! We are all inside the color, inside these paintings, just below the surface! Come see us a little closer! We frolic, we are the sirens of the West, the nymphs of the Northern Hemisphere! Let the pink cries paint the town! Let the decadent, luxurious madness drive you wild! Girls! Girls! Girls!