The Power of Porter: While You Look At His Hemline, Look Also At His Jawline.
Billy Porter — at this moment, perhaps the most talked about talent to grace the red carpet on Oscars night, and he wasn’t a nominee. The words “slay” and “owned” simply poured out of the mouths of nearly every commentator who saw the killer fashion designed by Christian Siriano for the Tony and Grammy Award winner, who was slated to interview cinema royalty as they entered the Dolby Theater.
Just weeks before, Porter thrilled the entertainment awards world at the Golden Globes in a stunning cape ensemble, working the red carpet as only Billy can.
There has been no shortage of response, plenty of it positive (mixed with the expected small-minded backlash of homophobic nonsense) about the daring fashion. Porter, who rose to the height of fame as Lola, the gorgeous trans woman in Kinky Boots, for which he won a Tony, is energetic and fierce in his choices. Anyone who has heard him in concert knows there is a fantastic mix of brilliant vocal chops and defense of his political stance and optimism for future generations — if they are brave. And brave he is.
The chatter for now is about how brave it is to walk the red carpet first in a soft floral and metallic cape, and then, in the same season, in a lush velvet tuxedo gown. (And it is.) All about the male hemline. They say that Billy has, in making this choice, become a true role model for young men, gay men, men in theatre, men in entertainment, black men. (And he has.) In fact, he’s done that for all of us, no matter who we are and what we want to become — in that we should express ourselves in whatever way makes us feel beautiful and bold.
I’d ask you to pause for just a moment. Come with me on this brief photo journey. I’ve been in the room with Billy, and he is a beautiful, generous, kind, amazing human, and you would be right in claiming that what he wears is a tribute and a message. It is pure and it is wonderful. But I am raising a young actor/performer who follows his career closely, and I paused long enough to tell him not to look just at Billy’s clothing, not at his hemline…but to look at his jawline.
Indeed. Look at it. Look at the journey of self-actualization.
Look at the path of self-love and acceptance and joy.
See what it looks like to say to yourself, “this is risk and this is reward and I OWN this and I love this.”
Look at 2013, where there is definitely happiness, absolutely. Here is Billy Porter, a great big smile at the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Sure, nobody smiles like that when they are unhappy.
(Okay, maybe they do — that was painting a sentence with a pretty broad brush, and this is a talented guy, but let’s assume genuine happiness.)
And in 2014, another really happy photo at the Honors Point Gala. That is a fine looking tux, and I’d argue anyone would be lucky to attend this event. Again, genuine happy, right? Right. But hold your horses, because there is a storm brewing…
By the time 2016 arrives, the restrictions of a traditional tux are falling away, and that jaw…oh, that jaw…are beginning to emerge. Now, there might not be a smile in the traditional sense, but here comes the fierce!
And we arrive at 2018. The magic happens. Holy cow, Bam! The critics rave about this outfit, and rightly so, and you can see right into those divine eyes. But again, look at Mr. Porter’s jaw. That jaw tells you everything you need to know and everything you need to say to a young actor. Everything I needed to say to MY young actor.
THIS…this is the photo of a man who is so supremely confident
in who he is that he can stand there, under scrutiny of the American Press, and he appears so much taller, and yet so much more at ease, that he commands the room, the entire room. There is no air left for anyone else to breathe. It is all there from the curve just below his ear to the crest of his exquisite goatee. He is so perfectly himself. The fashion press discussed how a man wore a cape to an awards show. What we should take note of his how his visage owned it.
And then he lowered the boom.
Seriously. His face changed…again. If you think that Billy Porter looks strong and commanding in a satin cape, just wait until you get to see the commanding presence that is a velvet Christian Siriano tuxedo gown, and the fact that he looks as though he was born to wear nothing else but this, forever and ever. I have a difficult time imagining him changing out of it, like, ever. (Of course he did, because he was classy enough to wear an understated version as he interviewed arrivals throughout the evening because, as he said, he did not want to overshadow them. Super class.)
This I tell you — it is NOT just about the hem of his garment.
Look at what happens when a man (I am a woman writing this, and in this moment I do not care one fig about women’s fashion) feels comfortable with his community, and that community is nonstandard. How ‘bout it?
We know that supermarginalized populations include African American gay men, those who are trans, those who are swimming upstream against what society has typically labeled masculine behaviors in masculine careers in masculine communities. I don’t need to tell you.
I’m so happy that the fashion community used words like “slay” and “own” to describe what Billy did on the runway, but if you really want to see what the impact of this fashion choice is, look backward, not forward, and look at a jawline, not a hemline — the results are fantastic. The confidence builds…and then bursts onto the scene. Be who you are, be who you want to be. And your face, along with your garment, tell the tale.
Encourage every kid, everywhere, to find what it is that makes them feel not just like smiling, not just like being happy, but like being fierce, like setting their jaw so strongly that even the pictures can’t lie, that there is a timeline like this that shows — they really do SLAY.
And Billy — thank you. My son will never be afraid to show up in what makes him feel strong, gorgeous, and ready. And he’s already practicing that look in the mirror — not with a tux, but with his chin.
