a flattering malady

March 28, 2018 10:54 AM

"It helped that the wasting away of tuberculosis sufferers aligned with existing ideas of attractiveness. The thinness, the ghostly pallor that brought out the veins, the rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, and red lips (really signs of a constant low-grade fever), were both the ideals of beauty for a proper lady, and the appearance of a consumptive on their deathbed. If you didn’t have the disease, you could use makeup to get the pale skin and crimson lips, and wear a dress that slumped your posture." How Tuberculosis Symptoms Became Ideals of Beauty in the 19th Century
posted by everybody had matching towels (31 comments total)

(via Chappell Ellison's design twitter round up)
posted by everybody had matching towels at 10:55 AM on March 28, 2018

This reminds me of the description of the death of Ruby Gillis in the Anne of Green Gables books, of "galloping consumption."

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde said emphatically after the funeral that Ruby Gillis was the handsomest corpse she ever laid eyes on. Her loveliness, as she lay, white-clad, among the delicate flowers that Anne had placed about her, was remembered and talked of for years in Avonlea. Ruby had always been beautiful; but her beauty had been of the earth, earthy; it had had a certain insolent quality in it, as if it flaunted itself in the beholder's eye; spirit had never shone through it, intellect had never refined it. But death had touched it and consecrated it, bringing out delicate modelings and purity of outline never seen before -- doing what life and love and great sorrow and deep womanhood joys might have done for Ruby. "
posted by peacheater at 11:25 AM on March 28, 2018 [25 favorites]

peacheater, my very first thought on reading this post was about Ruby Gillis from Anne of Green Gables.

Fascinating article--thanks ehmt!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:37 AM on March 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh, like heroin chic.
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 11:42 AM on March 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Started right? Because we have essentially the same standard of beauty today. It's only very recently that darker skin has replaced pale skin as the standard. The rest still applies.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:43 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm actually surprised the piece didn't mention Ruby Gillis; that character is burned into my brain as the most canonical example of this. She started out as Anne's most beautiful friend, and her illness apparently makes her more so:

But it was not at Jane, Anne gazed that day in dismay and surprise. It was at Ruby Gillis, who sat beside her in the choir. What had happened to Ruby? She was even handsomer than ever; but her blue eyes were too bright and lustrous, and the color of her cheeks was hectically brilliant; besides, she was very thin; the hands that held her hymn-book were almost transparent in their delicacy.

Here's another review/article about the book (which I guess came out in 2016?) from Smithsonianmag.com: How tuberculosis shaped Victorian fashion.
posted by purpleclover at 11:43 AM on March 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

That is so goth...
posted by Naberius at 11:51 AM on March 28, 2018 [16 favorites]

Oh man, I totally forgot that Ruby Gillis died. It wasn't like Matthew dying, or Beth in Little Women, but still.
posted by Gnella at 12:02 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

its much gothier if you call it consumption /faints
posted by supermedusa at 12:04 PM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

The article brought back memories of Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor, an interesting and short book.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:09 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Slumped Posture as a mark of beauty? Bring it back for me!!!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:24 PM on March 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

The whole Sixties tiny and emaciated look was down to postwar food shortages in Britain.
posted by scruss at 12:27 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

And also the source of the immutable fact that if a character in a visual medium coughs and leaves a little blood on a handkerchief, they're doomed.
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:32 PM on March 28, 2018 [14 favorites]

Women as deathly thin, delicate, fragile, and sickly, as something to be cared for by men, remain a fashion fetish.

I’d add temporarily hobbled by high heels to that list.
posted by mantecol at 12:51 PM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’m a big fan of 19th c. women who subverted consumption-chic for their own ends. Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice is one of the most famous examples, but Victorian novels are full of women who are like “oh, I’m never allowed to sit alone in a room by myself, or read a book, or have tea without making sure everyone else gets tea first? Well EFF THAT, koff koff koff alas,” and then everyone would make them go hang out in empty rooms curled up in blankets, and they could chill to their heart’s content, while getting miraculously better whenever something fun was happening.

Give me a repressive culturally constructed version of beauty designed to hurt women, and I’m always going to be a huge fan of the women who turn that stance into a glorious act of revenge.

(Also a big fan of Mrs. Wilson in Mary Barton, a former working-class girl turned middle class matron who gets "migraines" whenever she wants to be left alone.)
posted by a fiendish thingy at 1:13 PM on March 28, 2018 [37 favorites]

coughs and leaves a little blood on a handkerchief, they're doomed.

it's just a cough
posted by BungaDunga at 1:28 PM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

I have a friend who joked back in the late '90s that all of the guys she thought were the cutest looked like poets with tuberculosis.
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:14 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm your huckleberry.
posted by limeonaire at 3:30 PM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm your huckleberry.

Why did I have to scroll all the way down here for a Tombstone reference?
posted by Splunge at 4:16 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

the rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes, and red lips (really signs of a constant low-grade fever)

Because my exposure to this idea also came from Anne of Green Gables, circa age 11 I thought those were specific things that TB did, I didn't realize they were supposed to be signs of fever.

I've had many fevers. They've never given me rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes or red lips. I just get more sallow and bloodless. I wonder what percentage of even white-only people get "hectic complexions" every time they have a fever.

This is really throwing me for a loop. If it's just the fever then why wouldn't flus or cancers have the same effect?
posted by mrmurbles at 4:33 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think that the low blood oxygen levels due to lung impairment are what specifically accentuate the pallor, compared to other disease.
posted by notoriety public at 5:59 PM on March 28, 2018

Oh man, I totally forgot that Ruby Gillis died.

For some reason I thought she was turned into a vampire. Or was that Lucy Westenra?
posted by happyroach at 9:21 PM on March 28, 2018

I wonder if Carol Bird from The Bird's Christmas Carol had consumption? It seemed as though she spent the greater part of the book being ill and dying. It was published in 1886, so the timeframe was right.

(Also, it was by Kate Douglas Wiggin, who is famous for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which has several themes in common with Anne of Green Gables, if significantly more moralistic and labored.
posted by dancing_angel at 10:21 PM on March 28, 2018

This trope pops up as late as 1936, in Korean author Yi T'aejun's short story 'Crows' (Kkamagwi), for a bit of international perspective.
posted by Panthalassa at 11:01 PM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

Whenever I get a bad cough, I tell everyone it's the "sexy tuberculosis". Because cough cough must swoon oh I am lovely.

(Rather than the truth, which is cough cough oh my god what I am bringing up)
posted by Katemonkey at 1:58 AM on March 29, 2018

For some reason I thought she was turned into a vampire.

Surely there must be a Pride And Prejudice And Zombies-style sequel about her darkly glamorous afterlife by now.
posted by acb at 4:25 AM on March 29, 2018

Also adding to this: Momus — In The Sanatorium.
posted by acb at 4:30 AM on March 29, 2018

Uhhh so prompted by this thread, I was idly googling other famous literary characters I remembered dying of TB, and in doing so discovered that BETH DOESN'T ALWAYS DIE in Little Women!* Apparently Little Women actually refers to different books in the US and UK -- in the original, 1868 Little Women, Beth actually recovers from her illness, but in the 1869 sequel (Good Wives, ick) she does eventually die. In the US we stick 'em together for publication, but they're usually separate in the UK.

Annnyway I just thought that might be of interest in a thread full of people talking about the impression Ruby Gillis's death left on them

*and when she does, it's scarlet fever
posted by alleycat01 at 11:07 AM on March 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Can't believe I'm first here with a mention of Magic Mountain ...
posted by oheso at 3:02 PM on March 29, 2018

Nthing Ruby Gillis.

Another one: Sabine in Moulin Rouge. How the fuck does the girl do all that dancing all the time?
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:26 PM on March 29, 2018

Another one: Sabine in Moulin Rouge. How the fuck does the girl do all that dancing all the time?

But she didn't actually do much dancing, did she? She mostly swayed around and hung out on her giant swing. All the people doing the can-can were minor background players, iirc.

Giant swing: excellent theatrical contrivance so your consumptive star can still dazzle in between enervated coughing fits
posted by a fiendish thingy at 6:42 AM on March 30, 2018 [1 favorite]