Hey you Whipsters out there! #GetWhippin! I hope you had a fabulous day, and enjoyed the latest edition of "Born Naked, The Rest is Drag!" Today we will have a closer look at three things that I am absolutely fascinated by: blonde bombshells, pin up icons and the process of iconography.
And what better way to start off this course through the fascinations of overly feminine and somewhat objectified ideas of beauty then to differ the blonde bombshells into different categories. Cause you know, there ain't no prove that all blondes are stupid, neither that all blondes are man eating! (And of course these differentiations I make here are based on the public images that these women had, and only to a smaller extend on the private figure they are. Because in the end what is left will mostly be a public image. And only a small amount of people will look behind the veneer.)
The first category of blonde wonders are the Ice-Cold-Blondes. Characterized as a blonde who appears cool, settled and a little detached from the world she hides her internal fire, hunger and drive beneath the cold outside shell of hers. With their cold heartedness on the outside and a burning fire and desire inside these women often fell under the category of femme fatales as they made men lose their mind over their non availability. Typical examples would be Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Veronica Lake. All three of them mostly portrayed strong, independent and very beautiful women with an interior drive and sense of duty and commitment to a cause. Or the other way round. Their detached behavior and undercooled nature often brought them the reputation of men devouring succubus (A clear misunderstanding!).
Second category of blondes are the Blonde Bombshells. This category, featuring the most well known women all over the earth, is defined
by an explosive and über eroticized sexuality and appeal. She makes her sex appeal and herself available for men at a price (Not meaning money. We talk being a person her, not hoeing!). And saying it features the most well known woman on earth, I of course mean Marilyn Monroe. As well the category features Mae West, Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. This category of blondes is often mistakenly refered to as dumb as well, but the difference between them and the women in the third category is that their naivity rather is more part of their sex appeal then a real attribute. Marilyn Monroe is known to have been a smart and sensible woman.
The last of the three categories are the Dumb Blondes. These women had an open and naturally huge sexual appeal and their sexuality appeared along with a profound manifestation of ignorance. Sometimes childish and sometimes of a not that smart nature this combination marked them as the light headed blonde. This category features Jayne Mansfield and Alice White.
With this theory lesson behind us lets move on to the pin up wonders, which I am fascinated by as well. A pin up is generally defined to be a model (Male and female darlings!) who's image is produced and reproduced over and over. Hence pin ups actually do not have to be erotic. The notion of pin up as erotic was just later added to the table. Pin up photos with an erotic twist, sexy turn or body display are as well known as cheesecake photos. Female pin up has a long story in pop culture. Starting in the 1930's with icons such as Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow and Joan Crawford. Pin up in this time was rather aplay with androgyny and the sexiest it got was a bare leg. So no nudie shots there folks! That was an era of classy ladies in tuxedos! WERK Marlene! In the 1940's it were Rita Hayworth, Judy Garland (You know, the girl who played the chick in the cinemascope technicolor movie with munchkind, flying monkeys and ruby red low heel pumps?), Betty Grable, Bette Davis and Jane Russel that wer pinned up on walls all over America. Here the first ideas of eroticism came up which evened the way for the 1950's pin up sensation and all over blonde wonder Marilyn Monroe, Italian siren beauty Sophia Loren and Americas sweetheart Elizabeth Taylor (Yes mama! This one was considered a pin up at once!). With the sex bursting (Well for the 50's people like Bridget Bardot and Cleo Moore were sex bursting!) pictures these girls paved the ground for nowerdays sexy icons. But the 60's, with their cultural conformity from initiated in the 50's, were sparely pinup but still gave us dolls like Raquel Welch and Barbara Eden.
As we arrive in the 70's we have mother of the gay nation (She inherited that title from her mama!) say hello, welcome , bienvenue and wilkommen to Liza Minelli, Julie Newmar (Too Wong Foo!) and Farrah Fawcett. With a rediscovered mix of androgyny and sex appeal they made way for the 80's big hair and earrings girls like Madonna, Heather Locklear and Kim Basinger. And non of these ladies did it like a virgin! As we finally arrive in the 90's, nowerdays sarcastic and uber ironic hipster world and playground, we had Carmen Electra and Pamela Anderson who sexxxed up our life along with Anna Nicole Smith. Allthough Anna brought some more curvy ladies to play Carmen and Pamela really now brought the erotics into pin up, and the idea of sex sells basically was born between a huge pair of breasts. As well we get self determined black goth vamp Elvira mixing the stick up from the other end. In the 2000's we have everlasting contemporary pin up icon Dita von Teese, Lindsay Lohan (Then she was still mainstream hot!) and then Hugh Hefner main bunny Holly Madison. As it now is 2014 our pin ups have become even wider in their appeal as they have sropped pure sexy, used androgyny and incoorporate monstrous features. What we consider pin up in 2014 is way different then what we understood as such in 1960's.
Which gets us to the the last of the three things: Iconography. And it will provide us with the answer to why the pin ups and blonde bombshells turned out to be icons at last. Lets hit it!
Iconography is basically a process that involves a narrative and mostly a visual coding based on endless repetition, re-creation and re-invention. A generic, or widely known, icon gets its significance not only through its individual and specific genre or community but throught the fact that it has use to a generic system. Icons are genre, region and comunity specific. These infuse them with a thematic value in addition to visual and narrative. So basically these womenn turned into icons because their picture was ever re-created, re-imagined ans they appeald to a very broad demographic, even though they kept some specific characteristics of their heritage.
Puuh. After that much about icons, pin ups and bombshells, lets just sum it up and say that I am in love with all of them and their subtext. All that leaves me with only one thing to do and that is to make you adore my attempt at a pin up face! (And yes I know its oretty basic! =) ) So see you tomorrow with another fun filled article!
XOXO Dita
