The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup
by Susan Orlean
It is probably the goal of many a journalist or writer (or documentary producer) to take seemingly mundane people or events and dig around until something remarkable is discovered. It is probably the most difficult task to accomplish in any media because the end result may, in fact, be boring or mundane. Only a small fraction of writers can truly make ordinary people seem fascinating (and not in a forced or crass way) and Susan Orlean is one of them. The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is a collection of features and interviews that Orlean had done over the past fifteen years or so for Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, and Outside.
The first piece, written in 1992, “The American Male, Age Ten,” follows a typical ten year-old boy (Colin Duffy) who lives in New Jersey and who loves Street Fighter II, pizza, the thought of being an FBI agent, and the dream to one day live in Wyoming. From there, Orlean introduces the reader to the cult girl group The Shaggs (“Meet The Shaggs,” which, after its initial publication, lured the band out of retirement for a live performance), a group of teenage Hawaiian surfer girls (“The Maui Surfer Girls,” which would ultimately be the basis for the movie Blue Crush), a New York City cabdriver who doubles as the American king of the Ashanti tribe (“A Gentle Reign”), an interesting look at the comings and goings of a hair salon (“Short Cuts”), touring with a Southern gospel band (“Devotion Road”), and an interview with a former Hollywood agent who burned one too many bridges (“After The Party”), just to name a few.
Two of the more fascinating pieces here are “Tiffany” and “Figures In A Mall,” the former about the ’80′s teen singer Tiffany and the latter about where Tonya Harding grew up and her fans. Not only are they interesting simply because enough time has passed and the perspective is different, but they are interesting in the approach taken for writing them. Orlean, having lived in Oregon for a little while, knew that the press was way off in reporting that Harding was from Portland as she was really from an exurb in Clackamas County, which would be almost equivalent to saying that someone from Momence grew up in Chicago. As Orlean adeptly points out, where Harding grew up has more in common with Alaska and rural Oregon than with Portland, Seattle, or even British Columbia. With this knowledge already in hand (and the fact that there was no way she would get the chance to interview Harding), Orlean paints a much more comprehensive picture of Harding’s surroundings and her fans (who, for the most part, were kind of painted like idiots when the Kerrigan scandal broke). As for the piece on Tiffany, you get a pretty vivid portrait of a talented singer whose life is completely controlled by her manager. Her mom and dad are pretty much out of the picture business-wise and the manager calls every shot and even has, per his arrangement, complete control over which labels, businesses, and businesspeople can talk to her. It is certainly odd that nearly twenty years after Tiffany fell off the popularity bandwagon to read that she may have had some sustainability if a different manager were at the helm.
While at The New Yorker, Orlean used to contribute to a column called “Talk Of The Town” which featured small pieces (about a thousand words or so) that featured various people and businesses in New York. One piece, “Nonstop,” is about Peter Benfaremo, the “Lemon Ice King of Corona,” and it is nothing more than quotes of him talking. At no point does Orlean interject any of her thoughts and impressions and just prints his thoughts as she was smart enough to realize that the reader would acquire enough of a picture of Mr. Benfaremo without her assistance. This section of small pieces (called “Short People”) ranges from pieces about a large chair to a woman who owns a button store to the architect of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
All in all, this is a really easy read and one that is highly recommended. To be sure, there are a couple of articles that are kind of badly dated–the pieces about Fab Five Freddy and early-90′s high school basketball phenom Felipe Lopez–but they do not detract from the overall collection one bit. If I were to walk along a beach one day and were to find the proverbial Genie’s lamp and was granted three wishes one of them would probably be that Orlean write one column a week and release one book every year. She has a unique way of describing people and showing the reader a different view of people you may otherwise find nondescript and, because of this, is able to make the world appear as lively, odd, and wonderful as we all imagine it to be when we are honest with ourselves.
