Simone de Beauvoir: Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome (Pt. 2)

IV. BB and the Feminine Mystique

Four years after de Beauvoir published her fascinating little study of Bardot and the Lolita syndrome, the American feminist Betty Friedan gave us her seminal work The Feminine Mystique (1963).

In it, Friedan examines the problem that has no name - namely, the pressure exerted upon women to fulfil an ideal of femininity that is mysterious yet, nevertheless, rooted in biology and closely related to the creation and origin of life.

According to the proponents of this feminine mystique, it's a fatal mistake to think women are just like men, or can behave and become just like them. Instead, they should accept and value their own nature "which can find fulfilment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love".

It is this kind of thinking that has succeeded, says Friedan, in burying millions of women alive. But it is this kind of thinking that Bardot seems to challenge. And thus whilst all men are surely drawn to her seductiveness, by no means are they kindly disposed towards her. BB simply doesn't play the game that they are used to and expect of her:

"Her flesh does not have the abundance that, in others, symbolizes passivity. Her clothes are not fetishes and when she strips she is not unveiling a mystery. She is showing her body, neither more nor less, and that body rarely settles into a state of immobility. She walks, she dances, she moves about. Her eroticism is not magical, but aggressive. In the game of love, she is as much a hunter as she is a prey. The male is an object to her, just as she is to him. And that is precisely what wounds masculine pride."

In other words, BB silently asserts her equality and her dignity; she's never the victim and never anybody's slave or fool. She disturbs men by refusing to lend herself to phallocratic fantasy or idealistic sublimation, restoring and limiting sexuality to the body itself; to her breasts, her bottom, her thighs, etc.

De Beauvoir writes approvingly of the manner that Roger Vadim brings eroticism back down to earth in a society with spiritualistic pretensions. For when love has been disguised "in such falsely poetic trappings", it's refreshing to see a woman on screen who is libidinally prosaic.  

Having said that - and perhaps reminding herself that existentialism is, after all, a humanism - de Beauvoir regrets the rather dehumanising aspect of Vadim's project; i.e. the manner in which he reduces the world, things and bodies "to their immediate presence" (without history or a context of meaning).

Vadim does not seek the viewers' emotional complicity; he doesn't care if we find his films unconvincing or fail to relate to his characters. We know no more about Bardot's character (Juliette) at the end of And God Created Woman than at the beginning, despite having seen her naked. In effect, Vadim de-situates her sexuality, says de Beauvoir, turning spectators into frustrated voyeurs "unable to project themselves on the screen."

No wonder so many men describe (and condemn) Bardot as a pricktease [allumeuse].


V. Afterword on BB and Free Speech

De Beauvoir closes her little study of Bardot by expressing her hope that the bourgeois order will not find a way to silence her, or compel her to speak lying twaddle: "I hope that she will not resign herself to insignificance in order to gain popularity. I hope she will mature, but not change."

One can't help wondering what de Beauvoir, who died in 1986, would have made of the woman Bardot is today ...

Would she still declare her to be the most liberated woman in France and an engine of women's history? Would she regard her recent statements on immigration and Islam as a legitimate expression of free speech, or as an unacceptable form of hate speech?

Bardot certainly hasn't been silenced or resigned herself to insignificance in order to gain popularity - but has she matured, or simply become an elderly reactionary? She's certainly changed. But then, as Bardot herself says, only idiots refuse to do so and she doesn't give a fig about politically correct forms of feminism.  


Notes

Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome, (Four Square Books / The New English Library, 1962).

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, (W. W. Norton, 2001).

To read part one of this post, click here.

Simone de Beauvoir: Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome (Pt. 1)

I. Initials BB

In 1959, Brigitte Bardot - the world's most outrageously sensual film star - was the subject of a 64-page study (with many half-tone illustrations) written by Simone de Beauvoir - France's leading female intellect.

De Beauvoir is intrigued by the sneering hostility that many of her compatriots feel for BB. Not a week goes by, she notes, without articles published in the press discussing her love life and analysing her personality; "but all of these articles [...] seethe with spite".

Many parents, priests and politicians seem to object to Bardot's very existence. At the very least, they call for her films to be banned in order to prevent her corrupting influence on society, particularly amongst the young. Of course, as de Beauvoir writes, it's nothing new for self-righteous moralists "to identify the flesh with sin and to dream of making a bonfire of works of art" that depict it in pornographic detail.

However, such puritanism still doesn't quite explain the French public's very peculiar hostility towards Bardot. After all, many other actresses have taken their clothes off on screen and traded on their physical charms without provoking such anger and dislike. So the question remains: why does BB arouse such animosity?


II. The Lolita Syndrome

If we want to understand why Bardot was regarded as a monument of immorality, it's irrelevant to consider what she was like in real life. The important thing, rather, is to place her within a modern mytho-erotic context and examine what de Beauvoir terms the Lolita syndrome; i.e., what is for some the shocking and deplorable truth that older men are often sexually attracted to much younger girls.   

Idealists want their arts and entertainments to have an element of romance. But they also expect things to remain wholesome and familiar. The male lead in a movie, for example, should be clean-cut and the object of his affection a woman who doesn't deviate too far from the girl-next-door. And at the end of the film there should be the sound of wedding bells. 

Post-1945, however, serious film-makers were heading in a rather different direction. Their model of eroticism was obsessive and destructive: amour fou. And they were interested in creating a new Eve who was part hoyden, part femme fatale and whose youth opened up that pathos of distance that seems so necessary to (middle-aged male) desire:

"Brigitte Bardot is the most perfect specimen of these ambiguous nymphs. Seen from behind, her slender, muscular, dancer's body is almost androgynous. Femininity triumphs in her delightful bosom. The long voluptuous tresses of Melisande flow down to her shoulders, but her hair-do is that of a negligent waif. The line of her lips forms a childish pout, and at the same time those lips are very kissable. She goes about barefooted, she turns her nose up at elegant clothes, jewels, girdles, perfumes, make-up, at all artifice. Yet her walk is lascivious and a saint would sell his soul to the devil merely to watch her dance."


III. BBeyond Good and Evil
      

But BB is not just sexy in a conventional sense. Nor even is this "strange little creature" fully human:

"It has often been said that her face has only one expression. It is true that the outer world is hardly reflected in it at all and that it does not reveal great inner disturbance. But that air of indifference becomes her. BB has not been marked by experience [...] the lessons of life are too confused for her to have learned anything from them. She is without memory, without a past, and, thanks to this ignorance, she retains the perfect innocence that is attributed to a mythical childhood."

In a sense, Bardiot is inhuman - or superhuman - or both; a force of nature who doesn't act before the camera but just is. Nevertheless, she does seem to reinforce traditional ideas of femininity; temperamental, unpredictable, wild, impulsive ... a feral child in need of taming and the guidance of an experienced male. 

However, this sexual stereotype and sexist cliché - which so flatters masculine vanity - is no longer tenable; cinema goers in the post-War period were no longer prepared to believe in this phallocratic fantasy in which the old order was restored and everyone lived happily ever after.

And this is why Roger Vadim's 1956 film starring Bardot - Et Dieu… créa la femme - is a great work; one that doesn't fall into triviality and falsity, but remains honest to the spirit of the times by presenting us with a character, Juliette, who will never be subordinated, or settle down and become a model wife and mother.

De Beauvoir writes:

"Ignorance and inexperience can be remedied, but BB is not only unsophisticated but dangerously sincere. The perversity of a 'Baby Doll' can be handled by a psychiatrist; there are ways and means of calming the resentments of a rebellious girl and winning her over to virtue. [... But] BB is neither perverse nor rebellious nor immoral, and that is why morality does not have a chance with her. Good and evil are part of conventions to which she would not even think of bowing."

She continues:

"BB does not try to scandalize. She has no demands to make; she is no more conscious of her rights than she is of her duties. She follows her inclinations. She eats when she is hungry and makes love with the same unceremonious simplicity. Desire and pleasure seem to her more convincing than precepts and conventions. She does not criticize others. She does as she pleases, and that is what is disturbing. [...] Moral lapses can be corrected, but how could BB be cured of that dazzling virtue - genuineness? It is her very substance. Neither blows nor fine arguments nor love can take it from her. She rejects not only hypocrisy and reprimands, but also prudence and calculation and premiditation of any kind."

Bardot is a woman who lives only in the present - now/here - and for whom the future is one of those "adult conventions in which she has no confidence". And this is why so many people fear and hate her. If she were a conventionally bad girl figure - coquettish and calculating - there'd be no real problem. But when evil "takes on the colours of innocence", then good people everywhere are radically disconcerted. 

In sum: BB is "neither depraved nor venal". She might lift up her skirt and flash her knickers, but there is a kind of disarming candour, playfulness, and healthy sensuality in her gestures: "It is impossible to see in her the touch of Satan, and for that reason she seems all the more diabolical to women who feel humiliated and threatened by her beauty."


See: Simone de Beauvoir, Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome, (Four Square Books / The New English Library, 1962).

Note: this post continues in part two: click here.

Reflections on the Vulture 2: The Poetic Vision of Robinson Jeffers

VULTURE

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside
Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling high up
    in heaven,

And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit narrowing, I
    understood then
That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-feathers
Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer. I could see the
    naked red head between the great wings
Beak downward staring. I said "My dear bird, we are wasting time here.
These old bones will still work; they are not for you." But how beautiful
    he'd looked, gliding down
On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the sea-light
    over the precipice. I tell you solemnly
That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak and
become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes -
What a sublime end of one's body, what an enskyment; what a life after
    death.

                                                      - Robinson Jeffers (Last Poems 1953-62)

This is a very lovely poem about what is believed to be a very ugly bird and the even uglier fact of our own mortality. 

But Jeffers has the knack - as a poet in his own right and as a reader of Nietzsche - of making ugly things and terrible truths seem beautiful and desirable. Not by sugar-coating them with the lies and aesthetic illusions of moral idealism, but by placing them within the context of his own Inhumanism and affirming all things as belonging to a general economy of the whole.  

Jeffers encourages us to revel in our experience of life as is - not seek refuge from it, nor try to transform or transcend reality via flights of fancy. Like Lawrence, he wants us to intensify our perception of (and participation in) the natural world, which is red not just in tooth and claw, but also hooked beak.  

For Jeffers - a tragic poet in the noble sense - it is the sacrificial essence of existence that makes life beautiful. It's astonishing that things are born and grow; but it's equally astonishing that they decay and die. In 'Vulture', he expresses his eco-paganism in relatively simple language, but with all the visionary dynamic of a man for whom the god-stuff is roaring in all things. 

Give your heart to the hawks - but let the vultures pick over your bones ...

See: The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, ed. Tim Hunt, (Stanford University Press, 2001).

To read part one of this post - on Lawrence's philosophical dislike of vultures - click here. 
To read an earlier post on Robinson Jeffers and his Inhumanism, click here.

This post is dedicated to Simon Solomon, who introduced me to the work of Robinson Jeffers.

Reflections on the Vulture 1: Lawrence Doesn't Like Them

I.

Vultures are large scavenging birds of prey. Although they rarely attack healthy animals, they may move in for the kill if they chance upon a wounded or sick individual.

Found in both the New and Old World, many think of them as secretly belonging to a dark and disgusting Underworld due to their penchant for feasting on the decaying flesh of corpses until their crops bulge and they vomit like an Ancient Roman. They're able to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with dangerous bacteria thanks to exceptionally corrosive stomach acid.
 
Their looks don't do them any favours either; particularly the bald head, devoid of feathers. And - just to ensure their repulsiveness - nor does their habit of pissing on themselves in order to keep cool and clean (the uric acid kills those bacteria picked up from walking through blood and guts).  

II.

According to D. H. Lawrence, the vulture was once an eagle who decided that it was the high point of evolution and thus no longer in need of any further change; it would henceforth remain as it was for all eternity, in a state of static perfection.

The vulture, in other words, is a perfectly arrested egoist as well as a foul carrion-eater; fixed in form and corrupt of soul. It should be noted that Lawrence says the same of the baboon and the hyaena too, but here I'm only interested in his particular fear and loathing of vultures: shameless birds with "obscene heads gripped hard and small like knots of stone clenched upon themselves for ever".     

His ornithophobic vision is a crescendo of vulture hatred:

"So the ragged, grey-and-black vulture sits hulked, motionless, like a hoary, foul piece of living rock, its naked head and neck sunk in, only the curved beak protruding, the naked eyelids lowered. Motionless, beyond life, it sits on the sterile heights.
      It does not sleep, it stays utterly static. When it spreads its great wings and floats down the air, still it is static [...] a dream-floating. When it rips up carrion and swallows it, it is still the same dream-motion, static, beyond the inglutination. The naked obscene head is always fast locked, like stone.
      It is this naked, obscene head of a bird [...] that I cannot bear to think of. When I think of it, I never live nor die, I am petrified into foulness."

As we'll discover in part two of this post, other poets have a rather less negative view of the vulture - and some even manage to write about the actual animal, without immediately assigning it a symbolic role within their own philosophy.

Lawrence, however, can never resist lapsing into metaphysics. Indeed, the argument has been made that ultimately - for all his sensitivity to the otherness of birds, beasts and flowers - Lawrence only has two great objects of concern: (i) himself and (ii) language.

Amit Chaudhuri is right to suggest that Lawrence never accurately describes creatures at all, nor directly touches on them as things in themselves. Rather, he recreates and imitates them for his own artistic and philosophical amusement, assembling a menagerie of textual mannequins and symbolic beasts.  

See: 

D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). 

Amit Chaudhuri, D. H. Lawrence and 'Difference', (Oxford University Press, 2003).


To read part two of this post - on Robinson Jeffers and his poetic vision of the vulture - click here. 

Mr. Erbil: Revolt into Style

Members of Mr. Erbil Gentleman's Club

Photo by Hugo Passarello Luna

I.

Some stories are just too perfect to be true: and the story of Mr. Erbil - a Kurdish gentleman's club spreading positive socio-cultural change via sartorial elegance - is one such story. For theirs is a genuine revolt into style that demonstrates the importance of fashion in the never-ending struggle with fundamentalism and militant stupidity (of whatever shade or stripe).

London hipsters should, I think, take note and learn from these Kurdish dandies that it's not only important to dress well and look good with lovingly-trimmed beards, one must also endeavour to construct an ethical life. In other words, as the chaps at The Chap have always rightly insisted, the key thing is to expand your mind at the same time as refining your wardrobe.
  
  

II.

While the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq was somewhat sheltered from the war, in 2016 the black flag waving lunatics of Islamic State descended from Mosul and onto its borders. Most young men - and many women - joined the Kurdish military (Pashmerga) ready to fight not only for their way of life, but their very lives.

Obviously, armed resistance was absolutely crucial. But a small group of friends who liked to talk clothes and football over tea and shisha, realised the importance of also displaying cultural defiance in the face of an enemy that despises art, fashion, beauty and joie de vivre. And so, Mr. Erbil was founded, cleverly mixing Western styles with their own history and heritage.  

Starting with an Instagram page, they soon established a large following across social media and grew to over thirty members. They also launched their own line in men's grooming products and began to advocate for women's rights and equality across the Middle East (female activists and artists were invited to address events held in Erbil).

One can but admire and respect the founders and members of Mr. Erbil and send them the very warmest of fraternal greetings.

Notes

Mr. Erbil can be followed via: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

For an excellent feature on Mr. Erbil in The Chap (13 Dec 2017) by freelance photojournalist Elizabeth Fitt, with pictures by Mustafa Khyat and Shwan Blaiye, click here.

This post is for my beautiful friend Nahla Al-Ageli at Nahla Ink. 

Don't You Ever Stop Being Dandy: In Memory of Bunny Roger

Bunny Roger by Francis Goodman (1951)

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Neil Roger - known by friend and foe alike as Bunny - was a couturier, war hero, and what the Victorians would have politely termed a confirmed bachelor. A man loved within fashionable society as much for his kindness as his impeccable (sometimes flamboyant) style.

It's said that everybody's favourite fictional dandy, John Steed - played so beautifully by Patrick Macnee - was partly based on Bunny and his neo-Edwardian wardrobe that featured long tight-waisted jackets, narrow trousers and a high-crowned bowler hat. His exquisitely cut suits showed Savile Row tailoring at its very finest.

As a boy, his Scottish parents sent him to an independent boarding school in East Lothian. Founded in 1827, Loretto School is currently under investigation as part of an inquiry into historic child abuse. Bunny then spent a year reading history at Balliol College, before deciding to study drawing at the Ruskin, having determined on a career designing clothes.

The Oxford authorities had their eye on him, however, and he was eventually expelled from the University, accused of homosexual activities. The fact that he enhanced his good looks with rouge and hair dye didn't help his case (though I don't know if he even attempted to mount a defence against the charges made: Never complain, never explain).

In 1937, aged twenty-six, Bunny established himself as a London couturier who could name Vivien Leigh and Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent among his clientele. His shop, in Great Newport Street, was decorated in camp Regency Gothic style. Unfortunately, his career as a dress-maker to the rich and famous was cut short by the outbreak of the Second World War.

Serving as a commissioned officer in the Rifle Brigade, Bunny saw action in Italy and North Africa. He was greatly admired by his fellow soldiers for his courage under fire - and for the fact that even in the most demanding of circumstances he always made sure his makeup was carefully applied with a showman's resilience and went into battle wearing a mauve chiffon scarf, brandishing the latest copy of Vogue.  
       
Following the War, Bunny was invited to run the couture department at the exclusive West End store Fortnum and Mason. He seemed to enjoy his job. And he certainly enjoyed his colourful social life, holding lavish and often outrageous parties for his many friends and specially invited guests, until his death in 1997, aged 85.

Indeed, party-giving was arguably Bunny's true vocation; he had a great passion (and talent) for dancing, dressing up, and entertaining. One notorious fetish-themed party in 1956 even provoked tabloid headlines.   

In an obituary published in the Independent (28 April 1997), Clive Fisher closes with the following rather touching paragraph:

"All dandies need an audience, but Bunny Roger inspired what almost amounted to a following - partly because by word and deed he never stopped entertaining; partly because we are all nostalgic for style. Most crucially, however, he was true: beneath his mauve mannerisms he was stalwart, frank, dependable and undeceived; to onlookers a passing peacock, to intimates a life enhancer and exemplary friend."

Only the puritans of Dandyism.net seem unable to resist casting aspersions upon his character ...

For Bunny, they insist, was not a prominent figure within the history of dandyism; just an old school queen too prone to wearing sequins and rightly regarded as a marginal character. Indeed, all that saved him from being "just another flaunting, excessively camp clown like Patrick McDonald", was his Edwardian-infused sobriety and "genuinely good taste in conventional attire".

Unfortunately, nothing saves the Junta - as the staff of Dandyism.net like to refer to themselves - from lapsing on this occasion into ill-mannered homophobia.


Notes

Clive Fisher's obituary for Bunny Roger can be read in full by clicking here.

The Dandyism.net editorial (14 Nov 2007) can be read by clicking here.

Women in Trousers 2: A Brief History of Capri Pants Featuring Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn

There seems to be some confusion as to who invented the tight-cut ankle-exposing trousers known as Capri pants ...

According to an obituary written by Clive Fisher in the Independent (28 April 1997), credit should go to English couturier and dandy Bunny Roger. Usually, however, credit is given to the German fashion designer Sonja de Lennart, who opened a boutique in Munich after the War and called her first collection Capri after the island that she and her family very much loved to visit.

Aiming to provide a chic and sexy alternative to the wide-legged and rather masculine looking women's trousers of the time, de Lennart created the slim three-quarter length Capri pants with super-stylish short slits on the outer-side of the pant leg.

The radically innovative design of the trousers soon caught the attention of brilliant American costume designer Edith Head. She had a pair made for Audrey Hepburn to wear in the movie Roman Holiday (1953), along with other items from the Capri Collection including the wide-swinging Capri skirt, the high-neck Capri blouse, and the wide Capri belt to hold the entire look together.

The following year, Hepburn again appeared on screen in a pair of Capri pants - this time made by Hubert de Givenchy - in Billy Wilder's romantic comedy-drama Sabrina (1954). The cropped black pants were paired with a long-sleeved black top (with a plunging V-neck at the back) and a pair of ballet flats. It was a brilliant and captivating look that showcased Hepburn's slender physique to perfection.   

I have to admit, however, that it's just a wee bit too jazz-hipster or beatnik for my tastes; all she needs is a beret and some cat-eye sunglasses!

I prefer the above photo of Grace Kelly perfecting her own casual, understated elegance in a pair of Capri pants worn with a simple blouse and espadrilles. It's both a signature style and a classic look; one that many women have tried to copy, though rarely with the same degree of success.

She looks so radiant ... So fresh ... So blonde! It's no wonder Hitchcock loved her, once describing his ideal leading lady as a snow-covered volcano.            

To read a related post to this one - Women in Trousers 1: The Case of Katharine Hepburn - click here.

Women in Trousers 1: The Case of Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn (1907 - 2003)

Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1939)

One of the things that Roland Barthes doesn't like is women wearing trousers.

Obviously, he's not alone in this. Indeed, I prefer to see women in skirts myself. But it depends on the woman. And it depends on the skirt or slacks in question ...

For some skirts are very ugly. Whilst some trousers - such as a classic cut pair of Capri pants as worn by Grace Kelly - are very beautiful. And some women look so sexy and stylish in trousers that this is how they are best remembered within the cultural imagination. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and Katharine Hepburn are very obvious examples.*

And let's be clear, when these women pulled on a pair of pants it took real courage. For in the twenties and thirties clothing was regarded as an outward sign of gender rooted naturally and essentially in biology. Crazy as it seems in our gender fluid non-binary times, women could be arrested for wearing trousers in public back then as it was illegal to masquerade as a man (particularly for the purposes of deception).**

Further, many medical professionals were convinced that if a woman persisted in her desire to wear trousers it was clear evidence of lesbianism or mental illness, both of which were stigmatised as conditions betraying some kind of moral failing or weakness.

Hepburn in particular took a lot of criticism for her provocative appearance and prickly personality. Intelligent, outspoken, and fiercely independent, she refused to conform to society's narrow definition of womanhood and was equally contemptuous of the Hollywood lifestyle. One article, written in 1934, accused her of being a strutting revolutionary who aimed to destroy models of traditional (and cinematic) femininity - which, of course, was true.      

My favourite story concerning Hepburn, however, comes from the time she was still under contract at RKO: Studio heads decided they didn't like her turning up to work wearing blue jeans, so one day had them removed from her dressing room whilst she was on set filming. Far from persuading her to toe the line and put on a skirt, however, she returned to the set in just her knickers and refused to cover up until her jeans were returned.

As Dewey Finn would say, that is so punk rock ...


* The argument has been made by her biographer that Hepburn's androgyny was angular and sexless in comparison to the undeniably erotic allure projected by Garbo and Dietrich. Whilst I agree that for Hepburn her dress sense was more about personal freedom and comfort, rather than cultivating a seductive queer style, I find it hard to ever think of her as sexless - in or out of trousers. See William J. Mann; Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (Henry Holt and Company, 2006). 

** Various US cities passed legislation barring women from wearing trousers in the 19th and 20th centuries, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Houston. But before any Europeans smile at their American cousins and congratulate themselves on their own sophisticated liberalism, it's worth noting that it was only in 2013 that the French finally revoked a 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris (unless riding a bicycle or on horseback). If interested in this subject, see Clare Sears, Arresting Dress (Duke University Press, 2015). 

To read part 2 of this post - a brief history of Capri pants (featuring Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn) - click here.     

Cruella De Vil: If She Doesn't Scare You, No Evil Thing Will

Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil in Disney's
101 Dalmations (dir. Stephen Herek, 1996)

Cruella De Vil is a character originally created by Dodie Smith in her 1956 children's book The Hundred and One Dalmations. But probably most of us know her via Walt Disney's animated film adaptation or later live-action version, starring Glenn Close (1961 and '96 respectively).   

As the (less than subtle) name suggests, the puppy-stealing London heiress wrapped in mink is one of fiction's great villains. She has become an icon of stylish (and stylised) evil within popular culture, both in the English-speaking world and beyond. The Polish, for example, are very fond of the woman they know as Cruella De Mon, whilst the French are equally attracted to Cruella D'Enfer. 

What very few people realise, however, is that her surname is also a literary allusion to Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). In the novel, the Count sometimes goes under the name of De Ville; he purchases a house in London under this alias, for example. Thus, Roger Radcliffe's description of her as a vampire bat and an inhuman beast, whilst intended to be humorous, is perhaps more apt than he realises.    

The animated Disney version of Cruella - voiced by Betty Lou Gerson - differed from the character described by Smith in several respects. For example, in the novel she is said to be cooly indifferent and detached. But in the film she's a manic character, only just managing to keep things together. Gerson is believed to have based her version of Cruella on the actress Tallulah Bankhead, known for her outrageous personality and many mannerisms.  

In the live-action 1996 film, meanwhile, Cruella was re-imagined as the glamorous head of a haute couture fashion house specialising in the use of exotic skins and fur. At the start of the film it's revealed that she had even had a rare white Siberian tiger slaughtered for its pelt.       

Although the movie wasn't particularly well-received, Close's performance in the role as the cigarette smoking doraphile and zoosadistic sociopath won critical acclaim and secured her a place within the pornographic imagination; as did her distinctive costumes, make-up, and jewellery (the latter made from teeth to emphasise her fetishistic penchant for wearing dead animal parts).

Ah, Cruella! Cruella! This evil Venus in Furs! This mad embodiment of coldness and cruelty!

The curl of her lips
The ice in her stare
All innocent children
Had better beware ...


Notes

The song Cruella De Vil was written by Mel Leven and sung in 101 Dalmations (1961) by Bill Lee. Lyrics © Walt Disney Music Company / Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. Click here to watch on YouTube (and don't forget to sing along).

The animator for Cruella in all her scenes in the above film was Marc Davis. 

The costumes worn by Glenn Close as Cruella in the '96 movie were designed by Anthony Powell and Rosemary Burrows.

Capnolagnia (Fragment from an Illicit Lover's Discourse)

Jennifer Lawrence in an ad for Dior Addict Lipstick (2015)

Prior to the 20th century, smoking cigarettes was not something that respectable women did. And, even now, there's still an association within the pornographic imagination between women smoking and vice. For whilst there's nothing sexy about lung cancer, there is something erotic and aesthetically pleasing about a beautiful woman holding a cigarette and blowing smoke in your face (and I say that as a non-smoker).

I'm not sure this is due to advertising by the tobacco companies, who preferred female smokers to be perceived as modern independent women, rather than prone to immoral behaviour; a cigarette was meant to be a sign of freedom and equality, not deviance and depravity. 

Probably Hollywood is more responsible for advancing the idea that sex and smoking belong in dangerous combination and for creating the seductive figure of a femme fatale who is always looking for some poor sap to provide her with a light.

Of course, the golden age of smoking in movies belongs to the distant past. In the puritanical 21st century, studios have surrendered to pressure from anti-smoking groups and the health lobby. In 2015, for example, Disney - the studio that gave us one of the silver screen's great female smokers, Cruella De Vil - issued a total ban on smoking imagery in all its films.

Nevertheless, despite censorship and campaigns to stub out smoking once and for all - campaigns based upon overwhelming medical evidence showing a clear link between tobacco and a whole host of horrible diseases - the mythology of cigarettes and their sexiness refuses to die. 

Thus it is that, in the same year as the Disney ban, Dior launched a campaign for its new range of Addict lipstick (available in 35 shades), featuring the American actress Jennifer Lawrence as seen above. Smoking in public may no longer be socially sanctioned behaviour, but I have to admit that even the suggestion of a woman holding a cigarette is still enough to excite my fetishistic interest.