Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints) mentioned Ways of Seeing by John Berger 3 times

Last time I was reading the only book I’ve ever read, Ways of Seeing by John Berger, I noticed this description of glamour in the context of advertising: “Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour.” And I felt kind of attacked, because glamour is very important to us. And by us, I mean the gays.

— Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints)

The Marxist art critic John Berger called glamor the happiness of being envied. - [John Berger] "Being envied is a solitary form "of reassurance. "It depends precisely upon not sharing your experiences "with those who envy you."

— Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints)

John Berger wrote in his book Ways of Seeing about the European oil painting trope of depicting a nude woman with a mirror, and calling the painting Vanity. The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of women. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her. You put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “vanity,” thus condemning the woman whose nakedness you depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.

— Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints)