Grant McCracken

The Language of Clothing

In this article, McCracken undermines the metaphor of “clothing as language,” arguing that it obscures the ways in which objects convey meaning differently than verbal communication. Rather than being read in a linear fashion, material culture transmits meaning in a limited but more expressive way. McCracken puts forth that objects can bring a physical presence to entrenched but unspoken ideas. The pointe shoe seems to be such an object. Many of the factors that go into expanding McCracken’s theory provide useful means of generating questions about pointe shoes and their potential for revealing more about the culture that produces, consumes, and wears them. What do pointe shoes and their use say about the individual wearer and the society in which they are worn and accepted? I have chosen three aspects of McCracken’s argument from which the most illuminating questions arise: Systems of difference, Ritual and Rites of passage, and Individual expression.

Systems of Difference

McCracken notes that notions of ‘difference’ can physically manifest themselves in clothing and that many messages are expressed subtly through objects since they cannot be explicitly stated through verbal communication. Can this be said of pointe shoes? Only women wear pointe shoes when they dance. Why don’t men? What about pointe shoes, and the techniques they give rise to, make them unsuitable for men? Does this mean that there are issues of gender at work here? As well, there is the place of the dancer in society to consider. Do pointe shoes separate the dancer from the rest of society in a particular way, marking out her "difference?" Does this separation have gender implications? How does dancing en pointe maintain or undermine prescribed notions of gender and "the dancer?" These are all questions that will fuel my future research of this topic.

Ritual and Rites of Passage

McCracken discusses how clothing/objects reveal underlying meaning in terms of denoting the rituals and rites of particular cultures. From personal experience, I know how significant it is to receive your first pair of pointe shoes. It signifies a shift in your ability as a dancer. As well, the marring of the feet that occurs when you first wear pointe shoes becomes a point of pride among dancers – the bravado of suffering for one’s art. This seems to run parallel in the world of women’s footwear. Stiletto heels, pointed toes, and narrow shanks all seem to be designed to hurt the very part of the body that shoes purport to protect. Why would women, dancer and non-dancers, go through this ritual of pain? Do non-dancers take the same amount of pride in these self-inflicted wounds? What are the objectives of such a seemingly masochistic undertaking? Is there a "coming of age" implied in the ability to wear pointe shoes and high heels?

Individual Expression

Early on in this article, McCracken asserts that material culture is an expressive medium through which inward ideas are conveyed to the outside world. Objects give us the opportunity to see how “culture is enacted by individuals in their negotiation of daily life” (p. 61). This concept is useful but through its failure to illuminate pointe shoes as opposed to its success. Pointe shoes are homogenized objects that belong more to the category of costume than clothing. Individual expression through this object manifests itself inwardly rather than outwardly through the marks the shoe makes upon the body (scars, calluses and blisters on the foot) and vice versa (the subtle changes in the shape of the shoe as it is stretched out). This idea may be useful when looking at the origin of the pointe shoe. Who was the first individual to use pointe shoes? Was it a collective shift or did one person begin the trend? In this way, individual motive could be explored. Otherwise, pointe shoes are the common tools of the trade, homogenous in colour, material and, for the most part, design. This gives rise to questions about the similarities and differences that exist between clothing and costume. Can costume be used in the same way as clothing to resist or support social conventions or change?

The notion of individual expression, while not necessarily an aspect of wearing pointe shoes, is an important element in dance. A dancer, who may be seen purely as a vessel for the steps of a choreographer, uses movement as a form of expression. Pointe shoes lend themselves to particular kinds of expressive techniques for the dancer. What are these techniques and to what ends do choreographers and dancers use them as a means of expression?