The Early Years: What the Girl Wants

Summary:

            Pin up girls have been known to have split personalities. There was either “the virginal Good Girl” (pg. 12) represented by several actresses, in specific, Mary Pickford. This type of persona usually involved “a free-spirited child or childlike woman – with…some hint of a future ‘domesticated’ private life” (pg. 12). Mary Pickford represented this well in the sense that she often played roles involving those aspects of the “virginal Good Girl” persona. People loved her for this and she essentially remained “forever young” (pg.12). The other personality is known as “the not-quite-so-nice Bad Girl, or Vamp” (pg.12). This personality involved a very open sexuality; the girl was a predator, in essence; her “visibility – especially if she happens to be a streetwalker – allows for her sins to take on a greater scale and dimension, not to mention the subsequent destruction of the unfortunate men who get in her way” (pg.12). An example of a girl that represents this persona would be Theda Bara in A Fool There Was. This movie involved the Vamp seducing men and causing them harm involving in their deaths. After a while, the two personalities combined into what became known as: The Flapper. This personality involved a “new level of sexuality” (pg.12). The first It Girl was Clara Bow and somewhat more modern types of this persona would be Chloe Sevigny, and Uma Therman in Pulp Fiction. This persona involved two vital aspects; one aspect being that the flapper style let masculinity be sexy for men and women and the other being that these women were able to recognize sexual pleasure and to even insist on it.

            Hollywood actresses often were photographed in what was considered a “pin up shot” which were fawned over by many purely for the sex appeal/beauty of the picture. These pictures also added depth to the movies, though, and were symbolic and highly important. An example of this is with the movie, The Kiss, a girl promises to give a picture of herself to her paramour and her husband happens to come home to find the paramour retrieving the picture at their home and ends up getting shot and killed by the husband. This idea symbolizes that “photography can be fatal” (pg. 17).

            Pin ups began with burlesque, which led to objectifying women. This objectification of women often caused women to be empowered by producing and controlling the images taken of them. Basically, “You can make an image of me – but you can’t make an image without me” (pg.18).

Analysis:

            Pin ups began with the split personality, the Good and the Bad Girl which eventually led to the flapper (the combination of the two). Actresses in movies exemplified these personas and were photographed in character. Many of the shots are very popular to this day and added a lot of depth to movies and even symbolized a lot of aspects of pin up photography. These pin ups truly did have all of the power in these images. They may have been viewed negatively and as merely an object, while simultaneously having the world at their fingertips with their pictures.

Reflection Questions:

1.      How were pin ups objectified?

2.      What kind of power did pin ups have that resulted from their images?

Chang, C. (2008). Va-va-voom! classic hollywood pin-ups. (p. 280). New York: Fall River