George Will and His Fashion Crusade

My friend and divining rod for everything that pisses me off, Warren, posted this link on Facebook last week. Unsurprisingly, I couldn't wait until all my weekly obligations were fulfilled to write about it here so, naturally, I put it off for a week. I'll try to restrain myself, but...


My initial reaction was to start with a cleverly subtle critique like "George Will is an asshole." However, when I forced myself to really reflect on why this article frustrated me so, I realized that the most irritating thing is to wonder how George Will manages to get paid (by a highly respected national newspaper, no less) to write this piece of crap which, although largely opinion, is based on some very basic fallacies.

His main and most general point is that wearing jeans all the time is wrong because they are either misappropriated or childish. This means that, in George F. Will's mind, there is some essential immutable quality that jeans possess that ascribes a certain meaning to their wearers. Why don't senators wear togas, because I feel that that is the most appropriate attire for democratic debate. You see, the roles people occupy in society are reflected by the clothes they wear, but those roles and the rules of fashion which signify them change all the time.

Then, the whole "don't blame Levi Strauss" craziness started. To George Will, there's something wrong with hippies and cubicle-workers wearing jeans (Fridays only for the cubicle slaves) when they were originally invented for burly frontiersmen who were panning for gold. Again, the togas thing. Original function means nothing, especially since his argument is about fashion, not utility.

And another thing...I take some offense at the implication that video games and cartoons are inherently childish. Just because most of the examples of video games and cartoons from the past are just for fun and are geared towards younger people doesn't mean that there's anything inherently "childish" about the medium itself. Also, neither of these things make something childish. Why, when something is just for fun, must it be childish? I will not feel bad when I am still playing video games at 50, because they're fun. I like to have fun. Doesn't George Will?