Squeamish Bikini
  • Home
  • Squeamish Features
  • Squeamish Reviews
  • Squeamish News
  • Squeamish Contact
  • About Squeamish

Bettie, We Weren't Readie

31/10/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
It's Halloween today and for every person who is planning on pulling on some beige coloured underwear, tying their hair into two top knots and sticking their tongue out Miley style, you can bet your Halloween Haribo there will be someone donning a black wig and kicking it Bettie Page style.

When the Bettie Page biopic The Notorious Bettie Page came out in 2005 I remember being surprised at just how innocent Bettie was portrayed as being. While it was plausible to think of a sheltered Christian girl from Tennessee being rather naïve about sex and what might be considered – even now – deviant behaviour, it seems slightly less plausible to think she would happily pose in thigh high boots and a whip no questions asked. Lalala. 

In The Notorious Bettie Page we see Bettie being jolly and game for all sorts - cheerfully agreeing with Paula Klaw on the subject of shoe fetishes “I guess it takes all kinds to make a world." The film shows why so many people were charmed by her. Roger Egbert questioned the title, calling the film: "not very sexy or scandalous, nor is Bettie Page very notorious. "Celebrated" might have been a better word." Embarrassingly I thought it was a slightly out there nod to the Notorious B.I.G, it's very likely I'm wrong.

Considering the content it is a very sweet film – it has to be because oh boy, do we love a little girl lost saga. I would wager this is the trick of how Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe have become and remained popular icons for girls and women as well as men. The girl can't help it! The steamy, sexy image they project is set off with a wide eyed, childish innocence. Marilyn often looks like a surprised puppy and Bettie always looks like she's having the time of her life. Both have their successes offset with tragic pasts and traumatic childhoods. I wonder if these are seen as excuses by some – not that they need one. 

"I never had any problem thinking what to do with my body."

Now a documentary film Bettie Page Reveals All  is due to be released in the US. In it we see Bettie's contemporaries discussing her work and her impact. Narrated by Bettie Page herself, she discusses her sudden disappearance from the public eye and entrance into an institution to be treated for an apparent predisposition for paranoid schizophrenia: "It had built up so much that my mind snapped."

The story of Bettie Page is often couched in amusement over the McCarthy era prudery. Now often the joke of a TV scandal in which a singer has flashed her pants is that the people complaining loudest haven't seen the offending material. We live in such different times. 

Directed by her friend Mark Mori, Bettie laughs in the film that: "I never had any problem thinking what to do with my body." Even now she's a fascinating figure due to her carefree, joyous posing style that nobody else can emulate, mixed with her mysterious life. As Dita Von Teese noted "it's sort of confusing whether she was a real person or not." But Bettie Page said to Mori "they say I opened up the sexual revolution. But I was just doing my job and enjoying every bit of it."

I know Bettie Page's last shocking act was to die on 2008, when most of my friends thought she was long dead. But I like to remember her best for her quote to a judge: "I'm not indecent, I will not plead guilty to it!" Perhaps that's a quote more of us should take on. We like Bettie Page because she knew she had a body to celebrate, not shame. 

Squeamish Kate
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Booze
    Cinematic
    Dress Up
    Educating Sue
    Educating Sue
    Friday 5
    Friday 5
    Geekery
    Gender Agender
    Gender Agender
    Glitter And Twisted
    Glitter And Twisted
    History Repeating
    History Repeating
    How To
    Just A Thought
    Just A Thought
    Let's Get Political
    Let's Get Political
    Music
    Nom Nom Nom
    Nostalgia
    Tellybox
    Why You Should Love

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos from Pink Sherbet Photography, anunez619, NikRugby23!, Asso Pixiel