Page's unabashed and often droll enjoyment of what she's doing doesn't have any parallels in pinup photography that I know of any man who's ever hastily shut a porn mag because the women's faces look so miserable or apprehensive knows how rare her self-evident pleasure is. You couldn't depersonalize her if you tried, and that's something that genuinely deserves to be called subversive.Ībove all, there's the fact that she's unmistakably having a great time jumping around naked, disporting herself in homemade lingerie or pretending she's either scared witless (as a bondage victim) or else really, really mean (when she's the acting the perp). That's equally true of Klaw's bondage photographs, which come off goofy, unexpectedly comic, and ultimately innocent because of how blatantly Page is mugging for the camera. Nearly always, that old male gaze is forced to deal with Page's amazingly vivid personality, an obligation that often clashes with the purpose of anonymous nudie shots. Very few of her pictures look like anonymous nudie shots. (She wasn't especially busty, and her ultra-lithe torso's transition from tiny waist to flaring hips can look a little geometrically surreal at times.) Not only were her inventive poses often her own idea-a mannequin she wasn't-but she designed and sewed most of her own (very skimpy) outfits, which weren't generic either. But as far as Page is concerned, it's indisputable, starting with how she was no spring chicken-starting at age 27, she quit modeling at 34-and her body didn't conform to any accepted notion of female sexual allure. The revisionist case now gaining currency in feminist circles that midcentury bombshells like Monroe were knowing and witty self-creations, not exploited victims, is often strained. Better yet, he has Page herself on the soundtrack, humorously and brightly reminiscing in her old age. But he does provide a bonanza of incredible images of her in her prime-not only stills ranging from her camera-club days to Yeager's celebrated shots, but film footage in both black and white and color. Like most of her devotees, director Marc Mori isn't great at explaining her appeal to people who aren't already fans, and there's more heat than light in the doc's scrambled introductory sequences. Kids who don't give two hoots about Marilyn Monroe know who Bettie Page is, but if you don't, the new documentary Bettie Page Reveals All will probably bewilder you at times. Hefner and Playboy are both still with us, but so is Ovaltine-and when was the last time you had any? Page, who died in 2008, is not only the most iconic sexual image of midcentury's louche subcultures but a 21st-century heroine to hipsters and feminists alike. Hef made millions while Page posed for chump change for amateur shutterbugs, at least until softcore fetish king Irving Klaw and then pinup photographer Bunny Yeager recognized her uniqueness and she wound up in Playboy itself.Īnd yet she won she beat him. All Page had to counter him with was a body that couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's and an extraordinarily expressive face. Six decades ago, Playboy's incredibly dull founder created an empire that turned women into interchangeable sex objects in the guise of liberating Americans from their Puritan hangups. It's fun to think of Bettie Page as not only Jackie Kennedy's secret 20th-century sister but as Hugh Hefner's female rival.
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