Notes on the Case of Bettie Page

Image via Bettie Page on Facebook

According to Hugh Hefner, who featured her in Playboy as the January Playmate of the Month in 1955, Bettie Page was an iconic figure who significantly influenced American society. I don't know to what extent that's true, but she has certainly secured her place within both the popular cultural and pornographic imaginations (helping, in fact, to blur the distinction between the two).     

It seems that almost everyone knows - and almost everyone loves - Bettie, with her shoulder-length jet-black hair and amazonian figure (amazonian in the camp Russ Meyer manner rather than in the classical Greek sense). Indeed, over sixty years since her modelling heyday and eight years after her death, her estate still continues to rake in the millions and she continues to exert her charm. 

So I suppose the question is ... why? 

According to one commentator, the answer is because Page appeals to a large female fan base as a sexually liberated body positive role model. She may have been abused as a child and suffered serious mental health problems after she stopped modelling, but she's not regarded as a tragic figure or as a victim. On the contrary, for many women she embodies vibrancy, self-confidence, humour, and intelligence.

Again, I don't know to what extent these claims are true, but I'm inclined to accept that many women - particularly those who identify as sex-positive feminists or in some sense queer - feel a strong emotional bond to Bettie Page in much the same way - and for many of the same reasons - they do to Betty Boop in her pre-Hays Code prime [click here].*

The argument is that Page puts the rrr into pinup girl and that there's something a bit punk rock about her look and her attitude - something that I'm also happy to concede. Her imperfections and unconventional looks offer an alternative to the cultural ideal of beauty and she encourages us to challenge stereotypes and affirm our own individual quirks. 

Page also subscribed to a punk ethos in that she styled her own hair and makeup for photo shoots and handmade most of the clothes she wore when modelling. Not that she wore many clothes, of course, and usually they were worn only so that might teasingly be removed.

For Bettie was a gal who liked to be naked and challenged the idea that there was anything indecent or shameful about the body - a view which, interestingly, didn't seem to conflict with her devout Christian faith. As she told one interviewer who challenged her on this: 'I don't believe God disapproves of nudity. After all, he placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden naked as jaybirds.' 

In sum, Page is a fascinating case study who combines contradictory elements and playfully subverts not just ideas of beauty and morality, but also the awful seriousness of the sex industry; she was what Nietzsche would have called a comedian of the ascetic ideal - a knowing parody of the pinup rather than the queen of such. Thus, those who speak of her authenticity have misunderstood her appeal, which is that of the fraud who is always mocking everything and everyone with her performance.

Notes 

* I'm not trying to denigrate Miss Page by comparing her to an animated character. I'm perfectly aware that Betty Boop is a 2-dimensional fictional figure whilst Bettie P. is a fully-rounded actual woman. Nevertheless, there's something wonderfully cartoonish about the latter and it's surely not coincidental that illustrator Dave Stevens based a character on her in his successful 1980s comic book The Rocketeer.  

See: Tori Rodriguez, 'Male Fans Made Bettie Page a Star, but Female Fans Made Her an Icon', The Atlantic (6 Jan 2014): click here. 

Watch: Bettie Page Reveals All, a documentary film dir. Mark Mori (Single Spark Pictures, 2012): click here for the official trailer.

And for five minutes of joy, click here.

Three Portraits of Naomi 1: Naomi as Playmate, Bunny Girl and Jezebel

Introductory Note

The three portraits of London-born supermodel Naomi Campbell that I wish to discuss were all taken by David LaChapelle for an issue of Playboy magazine (1 Dec 1999). As one might expect, all are visually stunning and typical in terms of composition and content of LaChapelle's aesthetico-erotic obsessions at this period. Unfortunately, these obsessions - such as his very obvious black girl fetish - rest upon rather questionable sexual and racial politics  ...     

Naomi Campbell: Playmate (1999) 
By David LaChapelle 

In the first portrait, we see a bikini-clad Campbell astride a huge Playboy rabbit, the iconic corporate logo chosen by Hugh Hefner on the grounds that the image was frisky and playful and had a humorous sexual connotation. Hefner is referring here, of course, to the fact that people who enjoy engaging in frequent and vigorous acts of coition - particularly young women - are said to fuck like rabbits.

The picture is thus immediately telling us that here is a promiscuous playmate who likes to be on top. In other words, Naomi is a bunny girl. And, as crudely indicated by the fact that the rabbit she straddles is made of chocolate, she's also a black bunny, guaranteeing her sexual willingness as a given.

For if the history of racial mythology has taught us anything, it's that women of colour are real bitches in the bedroom; they can't get enough and they like it rough. This is commonly known as the Jezebel stereotype, one which originally stemmed from European explorers equating the semi-nakedness of the tribal women whom they encountered with a lewd and lascivious nature (so very different to the modest and morally upright girls back home dressed in their corsets and stays).

Amongst other things, such a belief not only established a framework that allowed for the crude objectification of black women, their bodies and their sexuality, but it also conveniently legitimized their sexual assault by white men; the former were always insatiable in their desires and the latter always innocent souls, led astray by these immoral and manipulative Jezebels.

It's disappointing, to say the least, that LaChapelle should reinforce this enduring racist stereotype and artistic convention of representing women of African origin as fuck-bunnies and bad girls. I don't for one moment think he's exploiting Ms Campbell, who's clearly complicit; as happy to pose nude for Playboy as she had been to accept blood diamonds from Charles Taylor two years earlier. But, as my friends in the Black Feminist Network rightly point out, he's not doing other young women of colour any favours with this portrait of Naomi ...


Note: those interested in knowing more about the Jezebel stereotype can click here to read an essay on the topic by Dr David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology, Ferris State University, Michigan (founder and curator of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia).

To read part two of this post - Naomi in the Cat House - click here. 

To read part three of this post - Naomi's Fruit Passion - click here.