NYTimes – Alex Kucznski
It’S 1992, and I am in a theater watching the new movie everyone is talking about. The protagonist falls in love with a woman who has rather broad shoulders and an athletic build. I, a competitive swimmer, keep hissing loudly to my friends: “Finally! A movie that highlights the beautiful, muscular form of the female body! It’s about time!” I see the broadly built female character as a symbol of vindication. Women can be tall and strong and still be attractive. But of course.
I eat my Raisinets in triumphant handfuls until we get to the end of the movie, “The Crying Game,” and see that the woman with the shoulders is actually a man in drag.
A couple of weeks ago I replicated the utter humiliation of that scene, on a consumer level, in the new Patricia Field store. Downstairs, past the footlong rhinestone-studded cigarette holders, I saw a pair of sky-high stiletto-heel boots in a fetching black and white graphic canvas. “Cool,” I announced to the sales clerk standing nearby, who nodded, then cast a polite sideways glance in my direction. Turning the boots over, I saw that the sole read “Size N/A.”
Not applicable? The taste of chocolate-covered raisins rose in my mouth as the terrible truth dawned: the boots were gunboats, far too big for most women without a pituitary problem, so big that mere numeric size was not even a relevant concept. I had simply wandered into the drag-queen shoe section of the store.