Sean Dollete

First Year Integrative Seminar 1

Professor Rory O’Dea

18 September 2015

Bridge Assignment #1

Smolder

It all started with MAC eyeliner at 2 in the morning. It was summer vacation, which meant that I would be awake until the sun came up watching old TV shows on Nick At Nite. That summer had been reruns of The Nanny. As everyone in the house dozed off, I snuck into one of my mother’s drawers and found the pouch of makeup she had bought my sister for her dance recital. I vividly remember the day she was putting it on her. She came home and was complaining about how much money she had spent getting all this makeup. My mother did not want to settle for anything low quality, especially when it came to my little sister’s face. So she spent the extra dollar and shopped at MAC Cosmetics. Looking back at it now, she clearly didn’t know what she was doing because the foundation she bought was way too light for my sister’s complexion. I also had to help her put the eyeliner on because my mom had never seen it in her life, nor did she understand why people took pencils and drew on their faces. But that early morning, I got a hold of all the makeup. The MAC Kohl liner in the shade Smolder, the pink Lancôme blush, the red lipstick. I somehow knew to apply the eyeliner on my water line, and as I looked in the mirror afterwards, this strange sensation flowed through my mind and body. I really liked how it looked. I couldn’t stop staring at the mirror. I couldn’t stop staring at myself in the mirror. Eventually the sky went from black to navy blue, and that was usually Mother Nature telling me that it was time for bed. No matter how much I liked it, I had to scrape the eyeliner off my face. What would my parent’s think? I didn’t want them to give me weird looks or ask me questions. I didn’t have answers. But something in me couldn’t let go. Of how I looked. How I felt. Eye liner is really hard to take off. You can try and take it off as much as you can but you’ll always be left with remnants. It doesn’t fully go away until after at least 2-3 days showering, and washing your face. That morning I tried my hardest to get rid of it fully. I gave up eventually. But I gave up because I secretly wanted to. I didn’t want to get rid of it fully. I didn’t want to let go. I thought, “It will fade in a couple days”. I wanted a couple more days with it on. “It will go away eventually.” And to this day, I can proudly say, that it’s never went away.

 

Gender has always been in my head. It wasn’t in the forefront where it had all my attention, but it was somewhere in the back in a place I could come back to. It was never a really big deal for me. All I have ever wanted was to just live my life, as myself. It didn’t really occur as an issue until I got to middle school. I made very different, out-of-the-norm, fashion choices and it made people really confused. One night, I was watching Hannah Montana and I saw Miley wear a long shirt with a belt over it. So the next day, I wore a long shirt with a belt over it. I felt fabulous. However, the disparaging stares of my peers made me feel abnormal. Here I am, just doing my thing, living my life and immediately people were judging, criticizing, and bullying. It wasn’t just innocent curiosity. Not when you throw hatred and negativity into it. I was in the process of discovering myself. But with people constantly placing labels on a product that wasn’t ready, it made me feel rushed. It made me feel like I needed to have an answer to a question I haven’t even asked myself so that the voices of other people would be silenced in my head. And in the process, I began to torture myself.

 

Makeup is a process. You have to begin with a base, then essentially, you continue to add layers until you arrive at a final look. For me, it began with that MAC eyeliner. That morning, my sister got a good look at my face.  She asked me if I was wearing eyeliner, and I laughed at her ridiculous statement. I mean, it’s totally natural to have black underneath my eyes, right? It was definitely from not sleeping and in result, getting the worst case of under eye bags. She definitely didn’t buy it. It progressed to being in the bathroom for several hours, sneaking makeup underneath my shirt and putting all of it on full force. I had a mirror. It was my stage. It was tragic. My face and my neck were from 2 different timezones. Red lipstick was not my look. I looked like I’ve been cleaning chimneys with my contour. And the eyebrows. I guess the kids today can say that they were not “on fleek”. After that, it was just studying. Watching YouTube tutorials with my headphones on, and waiting until everyone fell asleep to try the new techniques that I learned. Then one afternoon, during a time when I should have been doing my homework, I discovered RuPaul’s Drag Race. It was Season 4 when Sharon Needles won. And for a little boy who had been secretly putting on makeup during the late hours of the night to discover a reality TV show about men who put on makeup and dress as women as a career and as an art form was like discovering the Bible. It was reassurance. It was a comfort zone. To feel that there is something on television, there is somewhere in the world where what most people would consider an abomination is glorified, and glamorized meant the whole world to my gay little heart.

 

I remember vividly when I first wore makeup around my parents. I had been buying my own makeup because it was getting to a point where I had been using my mom’s makeup to a point where she was beginning to notice. The eyeliner pencil was beginning to get smaller. The lipstick was beginning to flatten. My mom eventually found my makeup, but she never questioned me about it. She knew. She’s known my whole life, she admitted to me when I came out months later. But I remember avoiding eye contact and facing her. My mom didn’t like it. Not because she didn’t accept it, but because she was fearful. She was afraid of what I was putting out into the world. She was afraid of how people were going to receive it. She knows my history of being bullied. And that’s the last thing a mother wants for a child. Her way of conveying that to me was by telling me that it didn’t look good or it was “too much”. To this day, she still tells me that it’s too much. Not because she’s afraid. But because I literally do wear way too much makeup. It’s a 2 hour process nowadays. Most girls don’t even spend more than an hour doing their makeup.

 

I have a friend from back home who goes to NYU, studying engineering and computer science. I met with her for dinner one night in Brooklyn. On my way there, her phone died and her friend had to look me up on Facebook for her to message me. At dinner, her friend told her to ask me about my preferred pronouns. No one’s really asked me that before, and I was so taken aback when she asked. I’ve also never thought about it because I didn’t have a label for myself nor did I really want to be labeled. Also, I’ve always seen myself as a boy. I want to be a boy. I always go by “he”, “him”, “his” pronouns. I also like to shop in the women’s section at clothing stores. I love makeup. I love my feminine side. It doesn’t bother me when people refer to me as “she” whether it be by mistake or with intention. I refer to myself as “she” sometimes too.

 

Anx. Anx Mannika is her name. As a teenager, my mom yelled at me constantly. I was definitely the troubled child in the family. I was full of angst and sass, and that’s who Anx is. Except she’s even more full force. From the way I dress as a boy, you would think that I have all the confidence in the world. Fashion does that for me. It’s an armor, a shield for the person behind it is insecure and self conscious. It’s not confidence that drives me to wear dresses and heels. It’s me being tired of hiding, and being scared about what people will think of me. It is me being done with not wanting to do what I want to do and not being my full, authentic self. Anx is an outlet for confidence. I am naturally a shy person. I hate confrontation and I tend to let people walk over me. I rarely speak up for myself, and only do so in necessary occasions. Anx gives me a voice. Through her, I can let loose, have fun, do what I love doing with no care, dress how I want to dress, and say what I want to say. I don’t have the confidence to do that as Sean. But because of her, I feel like I can conquer the world. Anx and I have the same style. It’s this punk mermaid, teenage witch bitch, bitchcraft aesthetic. She is definitely a runway girl and a high fashion model. She wears a lot of leather. A whipped up, high ponytail is her trademark look. She will give you eyeliner for days and she can perform the house DOWN. When I was thinking of a last name for her, I originally came up with ‘Feroux’. It’s inspired by when I was watching the 4th season of Project Runway one morning, and Christian Siriano was talking about his superhero alter ego, “Ferocia Coutura” whose superpower was spraying hairspray in people’s faces. But I felt that it was too generic and Anx is not a generic queen. I also came up with ‘Anx Doll’ to have some sort of connection to me and my real last name but felt that it was way too “Mattel” for my liking. But this all lead to “Mannika”.  Manica means “doll” in Filipino. Being from the Philippines and having “doll” in my last name, Dollete, it seemed perfect. It connected to my roots but at the same time captures the essence of being a man who likes to dress in women’s clothes and wear makeup in a really edgy and unconventional way. So that’s where Mannika comes from. RuPaul’s Drag Race is a dream of mine. America’s Next Drag Superstar is a goal. If  I were to win, I would like to launch “Mannika” as a brand, and create haute couture fashions. Fashion is my art, as well as drag. To mold them both, and conquer the fashion industry is something I’m aspiring to do. Many queens make music and albums so I would like to hopefully be the first one to break into the mainstream fashion world like The Blonds or MarcoMarco. I’ve seen many win the title, the crown, the $100,000. Wouldn’t that lighten up the student loan debt.

I’ve made leaps and bounds in terms of being at peace with my gender. And I can honestly say that nothing has changed. I continue to not put a label on myself. Why should I? I am me. Labels are shared and handed out for people to use. I do not want to confine myself in a word. They are generic and basic. That’s not my label. My label is me. And my label can’t be someone else’s label just like someone else’s label isn’t my label. My label is mine to keep and it is solely for me, and I’m proud of that. I’m proud of myself. I went through a rough path to get to where I am today. There were many times where I almost didn’t make it out alive. I have surprised myself and so many people. But I’m here now, today. I live in the city of my dreams, where one day I can wear something that people would consider “masculine”, and other days, I can wear a dress and 6 inch heels. I love having multiple sides and faces to myself. And I look damn good doing it.