Tribute to Pulps II: Spicy

Okay, so now it's time for a look at the seamier side of the pulps. Still I guess pretty wholesome, but fun and titillating nonetheless.

Looking at my captions from last time, they seemed confusing, so I'm putting descriptions after the images from now on.

I like this image from Spicy Adventure Stories. Exotic, dangerous, enticing. The translucent drapery that reveals/conceals, the luscious red lips, the narrow, deadly eyes of the woman waiting in ambush with her unmanning knife. I love the way it is so dramatically foreshortened to create the impression of extreme closeness. You are there, so close you can smell the musk and perfume of her body, hear her calm, deliberate breaths. Awesome.

Something of a generic image from Spicy Detective Stories. Woman in danger, about to be rescued, her clothes torn but somehow miraculously clinging. The main thing I like about this cover is it made me wonder: Was "snatch" used in its sexual sense already? The answer: yes, for several decades by this point, making the cover definitely risque.

Sally the Sleuth was a feature of Spicy Detective Stories. Although a fiesty dame, she always managed to get herself in some sort of sexual peril, often involving her clothes being removed. In many cases, the illustrators were not above drawing some sexual detail (this was, after all, inside the mag), but I like this artist's playful work with the lei and the grass skirt.

And then of course there's Wink, a full-fledged men's magazine, I guess, with its subtitle: "A Whirl of Girls," and its cover devoid of anything but the sexual content. I like the ambiguity of the cover stories. "Should babes be spanked?": beginning S&M or parenting guide? "Love below the knees" was either a popular story or there were several variant covers of this issue. At any rate, what does that mean? Footsies? Fetishism? Stocking buying guide? I sure don't know.

Tribute to Pulps 1

Having spent a couple days last week at the 66th World Science Fiction Convention, I thought I'd look at the wonderfully evocative women that graced the covers of pulp magazines, the kind of women that made 10-year-old boys aspire to acts of heteronormative heroism.

This is a great cover, coming in the latter part of the 20's and showing how scandalous these early covers could be. I'm not so big a fan of the aesthetic of the 20's covers. Although I like the clarity and simplicity of line they use, I don't like the tendency toward waify heroines. Nonetheless, this cover reminds me of some magazine covers where they airbrush out a woman's nipples to be able to expose more of the breast in an attempt to be evocative. Here, though, the candle cuts both ways, since it fools the eye for a moment into believing it actually sees the woman's nipple. Not to mention the odd, convenient tree.

This cover is good because its obviously S&M context seems really contemporary. The woman's outfit is practically the stereotypical bondage costume. And then to juxtapose her against the clothed or armored men completes the sense of perversity the magazine wants to use to entice its readership.

This cover, of course, pushes the nudity barrier just a little too far. At the same time, though, the revealing anatomical absence is interesting. It reminds us that what we are dealing with is fantasy. The images do not reflect real women or real men. All this is merely play. Simultaneously, it exposes the fantasy of control that is censorship. Censors may be able to remove the nipples from magazine covers, but they cannot remove them from real women, any more than they can stop real men and women from engaging in real sexual acts. Image suppression cannot effect mind control.

You gotta love Planet Stories, or, rather, I can't help but love Planet Stories. Classic woman harrassed by green BEM, late enough that this trope was standard fare. It's so formulaic, it's tempting to dismiss the art of it, but there are a number of cool things about this image. First, it's full of tension. Not just the suspense at the woman's peril, but tension in a real physics sense. As a static image, all the elements are balanced in terms of force pressing against each other. Second, it's so obviously a penis with tentacles attacking the woman. Third, the image powerfully controls the viewers' eyes. No matter where you look on the page, you are brought to the central image, which is a figure 8 or, more potently, an infinity symbol turned on its side.

A couple more Planet Stories covers. Not quite so well-done as the first, but good examples of the type of titillation the covers used. Shredded or revealing clothing and convenient angles that almost let you see what you want. Perhaps the story will tell you.

These covers may be a little sleazy, but I don't believe they're really degenerate. Although their dominant subject is woman, I don't think they are trying to or claim to say anything about women at all. Instead, their purpose is to celebrate virility. Action is the core element of their narratives, and sexuality is merely a side-effect.

The argument may not hold for the covers I'm looking at next time: "spicy" stories and men's mags.

Lesbian Aesthetic

In researching my last post, I came across something interesting. As some of you may know, Tina Fey was number one on AfterEllen.com's Hot 100 "The Sexiest Women, According to Women." Apparently, they receive over 100,000 votes from lesbian and bisexual women and assemble the results. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that the list is really different from the lists put together by Maxim or FHM, as you can see:

Maxim

1. Marisa Miller

2. Scarlett Johansson

3. Jessica Biel

4. Eva Longoria Parker

5. Sarah Michelle Geller

6. Elisha Cuthbert

7. Eva Mendes

8. Christina Aguilera

9. Lindsay Lohan

10. Ashley Tisdale

FHM

1. Megan Fox

2. Jessica Biel

3. Jessica Alba

4. Elisha Cuthbert

5. Scarlett Johansson

6. Emmanuelle Chriqui

7. Hilary Duff

8. Tricia Helfer

9. Blake Lively

10. Kate beckinsale

AfterEllen

1. Tina Fey

2. Jennifer Beals

3. Jill Bennett

4. Briget McManus

5. Leisha Hailey

6. Ellen Page

7. Sarah Shahi

8. Sara Ramierez

9. Kate Moennig

10. Lena Headey

No big surprise that they'd be different, right? I do think it's interesting that if you look back at the Larryville Chronicles "Babes" segment, you'll notice women from all three lists. Another interesting thing is the image selection. AfterEllen is much more likely to use just face shots than the men's magazines. In addition, while Maxim & FHM are more likely to put their hotties in swimsuits & lingerie, AfterEllen selects pictures featuring a slightly different attire:

And I'm not sure which is hotter. Love the hats!

Chix in Spex

I'll be brief here and say that I think women in glasses are hot. And they're hottest when they mostly don't wear them, then suddenly they do, and it's like walking in on them in their boudoir. (Yes, I just said "boudoir"--shut up and enjoy the pics!)

Magazine Covers

The thing I hate about magazine covers is how homogenous they are. The goal seems to be to take a woman whose appearance has some character, some interest, some uniqueness that makes her beautiful, and transform her into a flat plastic label that can be stuck on any product. Two powerful cases in point are the cover images for Marisa Miller (on Maxim) and Scarlett Johansson (on Cosmopolitan), where the women are made so indistinct that I have to read the label to see who I'm looking at. Another powerful example is this cover from Vanity Fair, in which Angelina Jolie, who has perhaps the most distinct physiognomy of any sex symbol in Hollywood, has been rendered indistinct. Her nose is completely blended into her face. Her lips are so accented by lipstick that they lose their natural appearance of fullness. Not to mention that there is a limit at which cleavage ceases to appeal.

It amazes me that these things appeal to anyone. I mean, I ought to be an easy sell. An image of Scarlett Johansson in a red dress with a plunging neckline: how can it not be good? But it isn't.

Breast Help

As you guys know, I regularly have to write articles about breasts, which begins to tax even my considerable creativity on the subject. One way I thought to get several articles out of one topic was to run a series on the best breasts in film, but I need to generate a list.

I found a decent place to start w/ Film Threat's 50 best breasts list, but some of their choices are a little odd, and it's not a rank order list, which, of course, would be very hard to do. But if you guys can help me with a few suggestions, I'd be very grateful. Here's their list:

Mae West ("Maudie Triplet," Night after Night; "Tira," I'm no Angel)
Jane Russell
Marilyn Monroe
Dorothy Dandridge ("Malmendi, Queen of the Ashuba," Tarzan's Peril; "Carmen Jones," Carmen Jones)
Jayne Mansfield ("Hippolyta," The Loves of Hercules; "Camille Oaks," The Wayward Bus)
Sophia Loren ("Jimene," El Cid; "Dulcinea," Man of La Mancha)
Elizabeth Taylor ("Margaret Pollitt," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; "Cleopatra," Cleopatra)
Brigitte Bardot ("Juliet Hardy" And God Created Woman)
Ursula Andress ("Vesper Lynd," Casino Royale; "Aphrodite," Clash of the Titans)
Honor Blackman ("Pussy Galore," Goldfinger)
Raquel Welch
Chesty Morgan
Tura Santana ("Varla," Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)
Uschi Digard
Pam Grier
Jennifer Connelly
Monica Bellucci
Rosario Dawson
Scarlett Johansson
Eva Green
Jennifer Tilly
Asia Argento
Thandie Newton
Helen Mirren
Jessica Rabbit

If you search, you can find the list on their site, which includes film clips and a brief (often not very interesting) blurb.

The Breast Debate

As much as I respect the opinions of my esteemed readership, I must dissent from their opinion on my last blog that breast connoisseurs only judge one the basis of naked breasts.

First, I have to say that bare breasts are best, and if we had our druthers, every woman would flash us her pair whenever our spirits were low. But if if's and and's were pots and pans, what would tinkers do?

Nearly all the breasts we see each day are fully clothed, but this does not make them unattractive. Bare and clothed breasts are both beautiful, for somewhat different reasons. Let's use Natasha Henstridge as an example, since I happen to have clothed and unclothed images of her handy.

She is not necessarily the best example, but we can still make comparisons. Advantages of clothed breasts: cleavage & unified line that generally creates a better figure. You get better definition and generally a better shape. Plus, movement is somewhat controlled,so that the breasts aren't going any which way when the woman walks. Advantages of bare breasts: nipples, for sure; and you do get the natural erotic curve of the breast, with the downswooping top and the rounded bottom. So . . . they both have advantages. Here are some pictures of clothed & bare breasts:

And how nobody talked about Marisa Miller, I'll never know.
And for your amusement, here's a JS nipple slip.