Today's Pinup Fashion a Sly Wink to the Past - New York Times

[scotrace]

A pretty good article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/fashion/a-sly-wink-to-pinups-of-the-past.html?_r=1

 

[rue]

Great article Dad!

Pulled from it:
"Recent issues of Vogue, Allure and W highlighted similar looks: sunnily updated, hypercolorized pinup shots that are the fashion equivalent of comfort food. They draw on a pervasive nostalgia for “more innocent days when sexuality wasn’t portrayed as so hard core and in your face,” said Edward Enninful, the fashion and style director of W. “People kind of miss that today.”"

Do they? I hope so

 

[bunnyb.gal]

^^^
+1

I really feel sorry for today's young ladies, growing up and seeing only the "lads' mag" and porno flick version of human sexuality, which seems to be everywhere these days, and thinking that's all there is to it...

 

[Feraud]

I was surprised to read someone found a 50s issue of Playboy while sifting through the garbage...

Ms. Clifford, 21, a recent college graduate and an art photographer, recalled that as far back as high school she was keen to trade the wan aesthetic that defined her crowd for something with a bit more ... oomph.

She found it one day while sifting through a trash container, where she unearthed a dog-eared 1950s Playboy.

I cannot help feeling the following quotes are what is very wrong with attitudes towards women and the feminine identity/sexuality today. Some try and spin the idea that taking images, actions, and behaviors that objectify women and claim them as empowering or as a movement. They fail miserably.

Once fodder for magazines with evocative titles like Eyeful and Wink, the pinup has evolved as “a woman-friendly adaptation of what was once not a woman-friendly thing,” said Jim Linderman, a pop-culture writer whose blog, Vintage Sleaze, examines that culture’s less savory side. Admirers, he said, “have taken a negative and made it a positive and built some kind of community around it.”

Natasha Vargas-Cooper, a cultural critic and the author of “Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America,” suggests that in reasserting their femininity, albeit with a wink, devotees of the bombshell look may wear wasp-waist dresses and elevator pumps to signal “I’m sexy” in quotation marks.

My wife often comments she is glad we never had a girl. The odds are against most women.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As I always say when such topics come up, read "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" by Ariel Levy for a look at just how serious the problem really is. A lot of very smart women in recent years have been conned into being willing participants in their own degradation.

 

[sheeplady]

If we say that women embracing their sexuality is a good thing, but there are limits where they cross into being sexual objects, who gets to decide those limits? There's a broad spectrum between tights that one can see through and being veiled head to foot. I certainly don't agree with extreme forced modesty, although there are some cultures who do. Many of the cultures who require forced modesty are far far more female unfriendly than western cultures, to the point where they stone women who are raped and allow men to mutilate women. I'll say that quite frankly that in the US we have a far ways to go for treating women fairly, but we're not regularly stoning women in the street.

Many women do like to "look sexy" and "attractive" but that doesn't mean that they want to be objectified. I'm one of them. However, I really don't like it when people come up to me in public and tell me highly inappropriate things that make me feel like an object. Sure, I could change the way I dress but I can guarantee that I would still get the occasional comment. (I got more comments when I blended in better. I think creeps tend to stay away from me now because they believe I'm insane.) It is less about what I wear or what I do, and more to do with larger social issues and problems. I'm pretty sure that every woman on this board has been whistled at, leered at, and had sexual comments made about their appearance. And we're a pretty modest bunch in the Powder Room.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think the real question is one that women ought to ask themselves: is sexuality merely one part of our identity or do we make it the primary definition, as modern culture seems to think it should be. Who is responsible for defining us that way? Do we *want* to be defined that way? Are we OK with all other aspects of our personality and our accomplishments being reduced down to breasts and backsides? It has less to do with modesty, that sadly misunderstood virtue, than it does with a basic question of self respect.

You rarely hear of women being described as "attractive" anymore. It's all about being "hot" now. Why is that? Who defines "hot?"

 

[sheeplady]

I think the real question is one that women ought to ask themselves: is sexuality merely one part of our identity or do we make it the primary definition, as modern culture seems to think it should be. Who is responsible for defining us that way? Do we *want* to be defined that way? Are we OK with all other aspects of our personality and our accomplishments being reduced down to breasts and backsides? It has less to do with modesty, that sadly misunderstood virtue, than it does with a basic question of self respect.

I totally agree with you about sexuality being an aspect of a person. I don't think it's something that women should be ashamed of but it is an aspect (just an aspect). Self-respect, though, has a lot less to do with one's outside appearance than what is on the inside. It's really hard to judge someone's self respect based upon if they've posed for a pinup shoot or if they wear heels or short skirts or whatever it is. Just because somebody does doesn't mean they are ok with having their accomplishments reduced down, anymore than someone who doesn't. It could be that both women lack self-respect or both have high levels of self-respect. Judging a woman by a single facet of her life, be it condemnation or condoning, shows a lack of respect to her as a person.

 

[Feraud]

I totally agree with you about sexuality being an aspect of a person. I don't think it's something that women should be ashamed of but it is an aspect (just an aspect).

The conversation is so skewed that if this idea is brought up one is accused of being a prude and wanting to supress a woman's feeling. The most egregious part is the accuser will likely be a woman..

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's not me you have to convince of that. It's modern society. When modern society drools "whoooooa, hawwwwwwwt," is it really impressed with what the woman in question has accomplished? Does it even entertain the possibility that she might actually *have* accomplishments, or any other aspects to her identity aside from her sexuality? That's the attitude that I'm opposed to, and I'm strongly opposed to a society that insists that any woman who questions such an attitude must somehow be in league with the Taliban. Is the best we can expect from modern culture that "at least we aren't being stoned?"

The main thesis of Levy's book isn't criticising the idea that women have taken charge of their own sexuality, it's to argue that quite the opposite has actually occured -- that in fact a marketing-driven society has bamboozled women into redefining their sexuality exclusively in male terms, thus the appeal to raunch and frat-boy coarseness disguised as "empowerment." Hence the title, "Female Chauvinist Pigs."

 

[Flicka]

As I always say when such topics come up, read "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" by Ariel Levy for a look at just how serious the problem really is. A lot of very smart women in recent years have been conned into being willing participants in their own degradation.

That's one of my favourite books. It pinpointed so many things I'd never quite been able to put into words.

 

[Undertow]

“It’s a niche, but it’s a good-sized niche,” Mr. Glaser said. “If it becomes too mainstream, it will turn off a lot of people. These young ladies want to think of themselves as free spirits.”

I thought that was an interesting quote.

I mean this sincerely - does anyone here on the lounge think future generations of women will find "stars" like Jenna Jameson refined and modest? Is it possible for us to disintegrate to that point?

 

[Miss Golightly]

I mean this sincerely - does anyone here on the lounge think future generations of women will find "stars" like Jenna Jameson refined and modest? Is it possible for us to disintegrate to that point?

I honestly think many of the "stars" today will be forgotten with time - they simply don't have the appeal, and therefore, the staying power of the old Hollywood stars. I don't just mean the likes of Jenna Jameson but actresses like Jessica Biel/Alba, Sarah Michelle Geller etc. - they just don't have the mystique of stars like Monroe, Crawford, Hepburn (both of them), Hayworth etc. They are just not in the same league.....

 

[herringbonekid]

I cannot help feeling the following quotes are what is very wrong with attitudes towards women and the feminine identity/sexuality today. Some try and spin the idea that taking images, actions, and behaviors that objectify women and claim them as empowering or as a movement. They fail miserably.

the point of the article seems to be that a vintage 'pin-up' look is a more innocent, demure, classy alternative to more modern boldly sexualised styles. are you saying that young women who wear capri pants, red lipstick and Bettie Page bangs are objectifying themselves in just the same way ?

 

[Feraud]

Yesterday's pin-up/cheesecake/burlesque is not any less demeaning because society today is worse. It is generally a bad idea to judge the past by today's standards. In this case the article is judging negative aspects of the past as quaint and classy due to how much worse things are today.
Dressing like a circa 1940s stripper/pin-up, etc. in 2012 is as objectifying today as it was back then.
The subject of the article is young girl out of college. The "vintage stripper aesthetic" is simply a phase she is going through.

 

[herringbonekid]

A pretty good article:

Scotrace, as the person who started this thread, i'd be interested to know why you think the article is 'pretty good'.

 

[1961MJS]

Yesterday's pin-up/cheesecake/burlesque is not any less demeaning because society today is worse. It is generally a bad idea to judge the past by today's standards. In this case the article is judging negative aspects of the past as quaint and classy due to how much worse things are today.
Dressing like a circa 1940s stripper/pin-up, etc. in 2012 is as objectifying today as it was back then.
The subject of the article is young girl out of college. The "vintage stripper aesthetic" is simply a phase she is going through.

Hi in my opinion, dressing like a 1940's pinup TODAY IN AMERICA is not as bad (objectifying etc) as it was back then in more modest times. Dressing like a 1940's pinup TODAY IN SAUDI ARABIA during the Haij would be worse due to the "context" in which it is done. In a way, it's all relative, and that's coming from a digital engineer.

Just my $0.02 with no dog in the fight.

 

[rue]

I'm kind of confused...

I just thought that she would rather dress like this:

Instead of this:

Isn't that a good thing?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I didn't read into the story that she wanted to be an actual stripper [huh] Besides, how many women on this very forum have cut Bettie bangs? Does that mean they're objectifying themselves too?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yesterday's pin-up/cheesecake/burlesque is not any less demeaning because society today is worse. It is generally a bad idea to judge the past by today's standards. In this case the article is judging negative aspects of the past as quaint and classy due to how much worse things are today.
Dressing like a circa 1940s stripper/pin-up, etc. in 2012 is as objectifying today as it was back then.
The subject of the article is young girl out of college. The "vintage stripper aesthetic" is simply a phase she is going through.

That's a very good point. While such things certainly existed in the Era they've been given far more significance by modern era subculturists than they ever had in their own time: the average American in 1947 hadn't the slightest idea who Bettie Page was: she was merely an anonymous figure in those "Ten Saucy Poses For A Dollar" photo packs advertised in the back pages of the Police Gazette. Gypsy Rose Lee was well-known and even mildly respectable, but it was because she made sure people understood she wasn't just another girl taking her clothes off for money: she was a published author of books and magazine articles, and held her own on "Information Please" alongside FPA, John Kiernan and Oscar Levant. She made a point of *forcing* people to see that she was more than the sum of her Parts.

I'm not saying anything against Miss Page, by the way -- she did what she did for her own reasons and got out of it when she'd had enough -- but by the same token I wouldn't want my daughter doing that for a living. I don't criticize the people who do pinups or strip or whatever -- what I question are the social forces that convince them that they want to do those things.

 

[herringbonekid]

Dressing like a circa 1940s stripper/pin-up, etc. in 2012 is as objectifying today as it was back then.

Bettie Page didn't 'dress like a stripper'; she took her clothes off for photographs. walking down the street i'm sure she looked perfectly respectable, even girl-next-door-ish. which i also think the female subject of the article does.